The Burden Of Love (Jonathan Toews)

Passion. 1

Emilia

Passion is both the rise and fall of every great person. Passion makes presidents, super star athletes, doctors, soldiers, it gives us a reason to wake up and start the day or close our eyes at night and dream. Everyone has their own thing they do with more intensity and love than how they do other things. That drive, that passion is what separates the good from the great. For talent without hard work is just a fancy car with no battery. Only with that passion will we ever achieve what many like to call greatness.

Passion also blinds us from reality when we get lost in the dream. It binds us to things we have no business being connected to simply because we believe it's what we have to do in order to follow our dreams. Passion become purpose and purpose becomes a burden. Something we feel like we have to do what we once loved as opposed to doing what we want to do with what we love. It doesn't take much for a change of heart, and loss of passion will certainly do that to you. But we all need that passion, that spark.

For a life lived without that spark isn't a life being lived at all.

For me passion comes from within. Some unexplainable force that drives you to work at something over and over and you never get tired of it. It can make the untalented people the most skilled just through pure determination. We all have a passion for something and until we find it we don't really know who we are. Who we want to be.

So we must walk the line between passion and purpose, purpose and profession. No matter how good we get it's important to remember why we do what we do, and it's important that the why is filled with that same passion that you had when you first started.

My passion is helping kids. Helping them find their drive, their purpose here on this earth. Too many children feel like they are burdens or without a purpose and I know that's not true. With so many things to fall in love with it's not too hard to find something that makes your heart beat faster, that puts a little pep in your step. There is no wasted human in my eyes, no kid too far gone. Each of us has a reason to be here and it's not to do drugs or join a gang. There's more to life than being a stereotype, being what other people say you are and not being who you really are. Many of the greatest people this world has ever know didn't come from much, but they made the most of every opportunity they have. And I'm here to provide that opportunity.

I know being a fifth grade teacher isn't much to brag about. Especially in one of the most under funded districts in the entire Midwest. I'm not winding these kids up for college or telling them they have to pick a carrer at this point in their life. There's far too many possibilities for them to have to choose right now. And in a city like Chicago where support for schools are dismal I know what is going to be asked of me when I work here and what I can actually get out of the kids. For a city with so much money the children don't seem to have much of anything. No smart boards or PE equipment or even recent books with recent information. Money goes to businesses that build this city, not the people who build it. How do we expect them to find passion in empty desks and with no one there to guide them? Why do we pressure them to learn but what they learn be nothing like what they need to know? Some of these kids have to make their own dinner if they want to eat and they don't even have means to chase their passions or even find them. Fifth grade is such a important transition because after this they get to make their own choices like what classes to take and what path they will be on. And in Chicago the choice is often life or death.

What's a little fifth grade teacher going to do going up against all this diversity? Well she's going to do all she can. Touch as many life's as possible and hope that when these kids get older and look back they will be thankful for what they learned before leaving this school.