It caught me off guard: the thing I thought I was just okay at—writing—suddenly had me waking up early to scribble ideas in the margins of sticky notes. I didn’t notice that love for it creeping in at first. Passion is funny like that. It starts slow, a whisper in your otherwise busy head. “Hey,” it says, “what if…?” You ignore it for a while, brushing it off as a quirky hobby, like being into cross-stitching or those lo-fi aesthetic coffee shop playlists on YouTube. But then one day, you wake up, and that whisper isn’t background noise anymore. It’s the soundtrack to your life.

That’s how I fell for writing. And like any good relationship, it’s been equal parts exhilarating, messy, and completely transformative. Looking back, it all makes sense now—but for a while, that passion was the thing I didn’t know I needed. Here’s how it all unfolded.

The "Accidental Meet-Cute" with My Passion

Picture this: a kid in suburban Scottsdale, surrounded by crisp desert air, golf carts humming in the distance, and a family mantra about ambition that buzzed louder than cicadas in July. I grew up with my parents praising the art of self-reliance and pushing me toward traditional career paths, like business or engineering. The arts? Those were like the friend zone of my future. Nice to have around, but don’t get too serious.

But there was one crack in the polished, stucco walls of my childhood bubble: storytelling. My dad would spin these ridiculous tales around campfires on family hikes. Most were exaggerated (did we really meet an escaped tiger in the Sonoran Desert, Dad?). But they stuck with me. It was my first taste of how words, when arranged just right, could hold an audience captive.

Still, I didn’t think much of it. Writing was just a flirty acquaintance back then, not a real romance. I toyed with creative assignments in high school, but as I got older, I shoved that voice into a “someday” corner. Instead, I majored in Marketing and went full-throttle into a career steeped in boardrooms and PowerPoints. Shirt pressed, tie straightened, future secure. Check, check, check.

Then came the plot twist.

When Day Jobs Trigger Existential Crises

Life as a marketing manager had its moments (shoutout to those occasional catered lunches), but something always felt off. Like ordering an oat milk latte and realizing halfway through you asked for almond. Good enough, but not it.

One day, while drowning in spreadsheets about click-through rates, an opportunity popped up. My boss wanted me to ghostwrite a blog post for the company. The topic? So dry it may as well have been a Saltine cracker stuck in an air fryer. But once I started stringing words together again, something cracked open inside me. I wasn’t just writing for clicks. I was unlocking parts of myself I didn’t even know were gathering dust. It was like I’d forgotten how good it felt to stretch a muscle I hadn’t used in forever, like going for a jog after three months of couch potato behavior. Painful at first, but weirdly exhilarating.

From there, writing grew into one of those magnetic relationships that consumes you. I gave it more space—waking up at dawn to write bad poetry or brainstorming during lunch breaks when I should’ve been eating my reheated pasta. Every paragraph, no matter how clunky, gave me life. And just like realizing you’re in the wrong relationship, I knew it was a matter of time before I made the leap from spreadsheets to sentences full-time.

What Passion Teaches You About Yourself

Pursuing passion isn’t a linear journey. It’s more like a dance—a sweaty, sometimes-awkward first-date kind of dance. You step forward, trip a little, overthink the beats, and wonder if you’re embarrassing yourself. Hint: You are, and that’s fine.

Writing taught me this early: Your first draft is like a first attempt at flirting. You fumble. You say too much too soon. You second-guess everything. But the beauty of it is refinement. What was originally chaotic transforms into something with meaning. I learned that the magic wasn’t just in the polished product but in the messy, self-conscious process of getting there.

Along the way, I also realized that passion is an excellent mirror. It reflects the things you value most—the stories I felt compelled to write were always about connection, reinvention, and growth. Turns out, writing wasn’t just about stringing together clever sentences. It was how I processed the world, how I made sense of the relationships around me, and most importantly, how I made sense of myself.

What Falling for Passion (and Keeping It Alive) Looks Like Today

Love—whether it’s for a partner or a passion—isn’t all fireworks and grand gestures. It’s about showing up again and again, even when the spark isn’t obvious. Writing is no different for me. Some days, I’m in the zone, words pouring faster than I can type. Other days, I’m sitting in front of my laptop willing the cursor to move, questioning my entire life’s purpose (yeah, it gets dramatic).

If you’re chasing your passion or thinking about diving in, here’s what I’ve learned:

  • Treat it like dating. Your passion and you? It’s a courtship. Schedule time to hang out with it regularly. Test your compatibility. Enjoy the thrill of experimenting without overthinking where it’ll go.
  • Start small—but start somewhere. Ever notice how some people won’t commit to cooking until they’ve bought 17 gadgets for their Pinterest-inspired kitchen? Don’t do that. Just start. For me, that meant writing one blog post at work. For you, it could mean dusting off that abandoned instrument or taking a class.
  • Let it be messy. Your first tries on anything will be clunky as a baby deer finding its legs. That’s normal. Resist the urge to compare yourself to the sleek version of others’ successes. (No one posts their bloopers on Instagram.)
  • Be honest about what fulfills you. Passion isn’t necessarily what looks good on paper or what impresses others. It’s what feels good in your soul.

And here’s the surprising part: when you lean into your passion, everything else gets better too. I’m not just talking about career growth (although that’s a nice bonus). I mean all of it—relationships, new beginnings, even how you handle setbacks. Passion makes you more you, which spills into everything in the best way.

Your Turn to Fall in Love with Something

I think about the Sonoran Desert a lot when I write. Deserts are funny places—they’re brutally hot during the day and freezing at night, full of contrasts and beauty many people wouldn’t stop to notice. But they also thrive because of resilience. Despite the odds, creosote bushes bloom, saguaros grow tall, and there’s a persistent kind of life there that’s hard to miss. Let that be you.

Finding your passion won’t happen overnight, but when it does, it’ll surprise you in all the best ways. Treat it like that exciting, intoxicating new relationship. Feed it, nurture it, and trust the process—even when things get messy. Before you know it, you’ll look back and realize, “Oh, this is what I was made for.”

Trust me—you might just fall harder than you expect.