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Aaliyah Zadok
We always hear about how important following your dreams is but sometimes it’s really hard to know what that dream is. We end up hearing the latest cool thing and suddenly everyone is doing it. I mean how many boys now aspire to be DJs since the whole DJ thing became popular in SA? Even professions have become clichéd. I think that we’ve all had an earful of “I wanna be a doctor” or “I wanna be a lawyer”. All these things are important, but variety is the spice of life and it’s often the weird things we like that make us happy and can potentially be what we would really want to do in life.

I’m talking about the things you love to do when you’re by yourself and that you would still do even if we didn’t receive a penny. My friend Noz finished A-level and went to university to study jewellery. Interestingly enough she never even did jewellery in school, making necklaces and bracelets when she was bored or stressed was her hobby. I’ve seen too many people going through the motions and completely unhappy in life (even though they have money) because they are doing something that they don’t even like.

Which comes to another issue; most people do things because they can make money. Money is just an idea, meaning that your ideas are what will make you a lot of cash not a job. Think about Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, Steve Jobs, and Strive Masiyiwa; they all started things that weren’t in existence before and their names will go down in history like Henry Ford and Benjamin Franklin. There’s a popular saying that goes “no one remembers the second man who walked on the moon”. Originality will always pay off.

Going back to the point you owe it to yourself and everyone else to pursue your passions and hobbies. The beautiful thing is that you don’t’ even have to do it full time.

You can still keep your job and go to school while being happy pursuing your passion and hobby. Even if you don’t really know what you’re passionate about then try new things. Instead of going to that boot or braai why not try collaging or collecting stamps, whatever comes to mind.

Some more ideas would be cold water swimming, flower-pressing, trying new recipes, building castles with sand or mud or chocolate! LOL!

Anything goes, just don’t limit yourself to what everyone else is doing. It would be nice to hear a guy say that he plays violin and dances jazz for once instead of deejaying and B-boying ( I don’t have anything against deejaying or B-boying but they’ve become like the national anthem for hobbies).

Anyway, I hope that I’ve given you something to think about and inspired you a little.

Next week I’ll tell you all about my personal passion and hobby. Till next time, have fun, be creative and ciao!

• Aaliyah Zadok is an 18-year old writer with a passion for health, wellness and anything creative. Follow her on Twitter at CrazyOtakuGirl79. You can read more of her articles at http://contributor.yahoo.com/user/1839744/aaliyah_zadok.html