I consider myself to be a pretty good student. I pay attention in class, I’m polite to a fault and I am just a tiny bit of a brown noser. But even when I get good grades, I don’t feel fulfilled.

I look at the As and 10s and 100%s in the grade book and feel nothing but a mild sense of relief that I don’t need to put any more thought into my work. As hard as I try, I can never seem to find any sense of pride or accomplishment in my academics, only tepid contentment.

On the other hand, I do not consider myself to be a very good baker. I’m impatient, I don’t work well under pressure and I can read a cookie recipe thrice over and still forget to add the flour. Even though I can hardly cook scrambled eggs, I bake whenever I can because I just find it so exciting.

I’ve raised a yeast colony for weeks, spent an entire evening baking macarons and scoured every Asian market in my area in search of purple yams. All of these activities ended in spectacular failure, but I enjoyed every moment because, for once, I was doing it all on my terms.

I was free to do as I pleased and to challenge myself to try new things. Sure, I failed plenty of times, but that unmatched feeling of accomplishment I got when I succeeded made up for all the dead yeast, salty macarons and misidentified yams.

I think one of the most important things in life is to find something you have true, boundless passion for. Baking is fun and comes with free food, but you can be passionate about just about anything. I think school has blurred many people’s views about what they actually care about. I think it’s important that we don’t lose sight of our passion, because it’s what makes us who we are.