Follow Your Passion

While I recently had a broken leg, I had plenty of time to think.  I’ve been thinking about the past and the future, and the journey I have taken from wanting to be an engineer to wanting to follow my passion.  I’d like to share how I became so passionate about Belong and the lifestyle it represents.

Let me first go back to when I was trudging my way through classes at Mines though.  Freshman year, I was full of excitement about the prospect of making a sizeable income in a field I was very interested in.  However, after Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior year, I began to feel differently.  Going through Mines was difficult for me.  I would work very hard in class and would not want to do anything after I finished my work.  I just wanted to relax.  So, when I didn’t have school work to do, I just sat around the house, read, watched movies, and played video games.  I began to feel frightened that by doing engineering, this is what my life would be.  I would make a good salary, but I would be in an office all day, and my life outside of work would be me sitting around and feeling sorry for myself that I wasn’t doing something that was exciting and meaningful to me.

That’s when Belong saved me from this unfulfilled future.  My two co-founders and I are still working day jobs in order to make enough money to live.  We are putting in 8 to 9 hours for our day job and then coming home and putting in another 8 hours for Belong.  LIFE IS GREAT!  We work hard because at the end of each day we have hope.  I could not imagine going through life working a 9 to 5 job that I wasn’t passionate about.  That is the most important thing that Belong has given me this past year.  Hope that one day soon I will be able to go fulltime at Belong and not work another day in my life.

When you are making a living doing something you are passionate about, I do not consider that working.  Belong allowed me to find my passion.  More importantly, the idea behind the word.  BELONG means to follow your passion and do what you love, and that is where you BELONG.  I was hooked!  Following your passion is an idea we all want to follow, but very few of us have the courage to do so.  I began to live by this motto. Following graduation I decided to use the little money I had to backpack Europe for 3 months with one of my best friends.  I was fortunate enough to experience different cultures, meet amazing people, and had the freedom to do and see whatever I wanted.  Following my trip I was completely broke, but the hardship of not having money was well worth the trip through Europe.  Yeah, before the trip I was terrified that after traveling I would have to live with my parents and would have a hard time finding a job.  But, then I realized that if I didn’t go travel I would not be happy doing anything until I experienced it and went through with it.  This is what my passion in life became.  Helping others find their passion, and finding the courage to do what they want.  

This is what BELONG lets me do for a living.  I am lucky enough to say that my job in life is helping to show people that their happiness is all that matters.  As long as they are happy and doing what they love, they BELONG.  So go out there and find what you love to do.  Follow your passion.  Find where you BELONG.