By Peter Odeyemi, Junior Reporter
As time goes by, we sometimes find ourselves stuck in a new version of life we often didn’t plan for: changed friendships, dropped hobbies and dwindled interests. We adopt new routines and lifestyles that can help us become better people, but the spark that motivated us eventually dies out. Why does this happen?
What actually inspired me to write this was last week, I got a card in the mail from someone who read one of my articles and was quite impressed with my work. He encouraged me to write more and gave me a few recommendations on books I should look into and lots of authors. But one part of the letter stuck with me until now: he wrote, and I quote, “I hope you keep writing regularly. Human beings are having trouble keeping their independent thinking alive. They need encouragement”.
What he said actually reminded me of my high school days when I used to write articles for the school a lot. I’m talking about every week publications. I was really dedicated back then, doing it for the love of the game, no rewards attached. So what happened to that version of me? Why did I lose that drive? I picked up lots of hobbies and interests after that; still, none of those really stuck with me the way writing did. I loved reading novels and books. I also played chess when I was bored. I played some sports too, but over time, maybe I got busy and dropped them. These interests just died out, and I found it really hard to dedicate my spare time to these hobbies anymore. Maybe that’s what growing up means… slowly losing parts of yourself that made you once feel happy. Everything I used to love doing became very foreign to me. I slowly lost my individual thinking process, became very disinterested in a lot of things and found it hard to try out new things.
Losing your spark doesn’t necessarily mean slowly losing the drive you had for a hobby, it’s also about becoming burnt out in your day-to-day life: when you feel like you're just existing rather than living, rather than enjoying the good moments in life. When you feel like you’ve lost touch with your enthusiasm and joy. This is all totally normal, but it disturbs me when I think about how much potential I had or wasted… but you have to realize that perhaps your spark is not gone, it might just be waiting to be reignited. In the words of an unknown writer, “What once lit your soul still waits to be rekindled. Go back and find the spark”.
Beneath all the self-doubt and exhaustion is an underlying hope that you could one day, just one day, slowly regain the person you once were and become the person “the little you” would’ve wanted to be. It's about embracing the dying out of a spark and lighting it up (I really don’t know why this is beginning to sound like a motivational piece of work, maybe that’s what happens when you write on a Friday night… lol). In any case, perhaps you need to sit down, have a chat with yourself, talk to new people, go back to past interests and develop new ones. Keep yourself busy and HAPPY at the same time. Do what makes you smile and take some rest as well. The fact that I miss the old me means there's still hope for me… and for you.