Chris Iwanek
February 12, 2014
ESL 100
True Passions Never
Die
“Passion is
energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites.” (Oprah
Winfrey). Passion is what makes life truly exciting it determines parts of an
individual, as well as it can reveal a person’s interests. People can feel
passionate about all sorts of things, including activities, hobbies, or about
another individual. One particular thing, quite in contrast to the United
States, that most people in my home country of Germany are passionate about, is
the sport of soccer. Soccer in Germany is by far the most followed sport, and
some followers take it so far that they dedicate their whole life to the sport,
and the particular club they are supporting. Most of my life I spent the same
way, being a true supporter of my hometown team, Hamburger SV, but ever since I
moved to the United States, my passion for my bellowed team slowly seemed to disappear.
Soccer is
the most popular sport not only in Germany, but also in most parts of the world.
Most followers choose their team due to a variety of reasons. Since most of the
people are loyal to only one club at the time they inherit their team of choice
from their members of the family. In my case, I chose to support my hometown
team, because of the city I was born into, and because my father has already
been a strong supporter of the team ever since he moved to Germany. Therefore,
like every strong supporter, I used to collect fan supplies, watch every single
game of my team, and try to go to the local stadium as much as my pockets
allowed. In my own thoughts there was no way on earth that that could change,
even by moving into another country.
Nevertheless,
after my arrival to the U.S, my passion slowly began to fade. All of the sudden
I was thrown into a completely new world with a completely different culture
and, indeed, completely different passions. Growing up in a western culture, I
did not expect the U.S to be too different from Germany, but my views rapidly
changed upon my arrival. Thrown into this new world of change, I was
overwhelmed with learning the new culture so much that I entirely forgot about
practicing my own native culture. In the beginning, I was still trying to keep
track of what was going on back home, especially in sports, but soon I had to
realize that I was being confronted with a true issue, the loss of my passion.
After a
short period of time, I began to realize that my interest for soccer and its
weekly results began to decrease. In the beginning, I still tried in vain to
keep on following at least my hometown team’s results, but only to realize that
I was losing interest. In the States, people have so many things to choose
their interest from, that I was entirely overwhelmed by the variety of sports
people pay attention to. I could not keep up with my own interest. Moreover, I began
watching sports that I have also been passionate about, but never had the
accessibility of watching like basketball. After realizing what happened to my
passion after all, I was not upset over the loss of one sport because I had the
chance to learn so much more about life and culture in Chicago.
Every
country has its own definition of what passion is to them, but one thing is
universal, the loss of a passion can truly be an eye opening but also an
alerting loss. Once people are passionate about something, they hold on to it
so strongly that they blank out everything other than their passion and might
miss the chance of finding other own interests. I experienced an identical
situation that caused that change of passion. However, overall my well-being
remained satisfied because despite the change I went through, I might have lost
one passion but have won many more.
I also have some experience. I was a dancer when I was in China, and I have danced about more than three years. However, after I came to Chicago, I did not touch it anymore.
ReplyDeleteI love soccer too. Actually, in the past, I supported Hamburger SV, because there was Korean Soccer player belong in that team. His name is Son, but he moved to Reverkuzen FC, so I am supporting this team now.
ReplyDeleteIt's called Bayer Leverkusen and Chris and I know Son, he is such a good player! :D
DeleteYou don't even know how disappointed I am that they had to get rid of him for money! He was such good and talented player.
DeleteHello. I do like your last sentence "I might have lost one passion but have won many more." In fact , when you lose something, you must get something at the same time. I can't sure that something you get is good or not, but it means you get something new. Please believe in the life, it is fair to everyone. However, you looks so good of living in Chicago.
ReplyDeleteChris,
ReplyDeletewhat a well written essay. I'm afraid to tell you the same. Since I'm here I lost more and more track of the HSV as well. My mom is telling me the most important news when something special happens because sometimes I miss it when it's on Facebook =P