When I was in grade 11, my best friend passed away. He was the best friend I had ever had—funny, friendly, and an incredible listener. I used to see him almost every day, once in the morning at school and again after school when we’d hang out with our group of friends.
We shared a bond that’s hard to put into words, but if you’ve been friends with someone since childhood, you might understand what that feels like.
After he passed away, I fell into a deep depression that eventually led me to attempt suicide. I didn’t die, though, because my older brother found out just in time. He woke up my parents, and they rushed me to the hospital.
As a creative person, I thought if I were going to die, it had to be in a unique and painless way. So, I decided on a caffeine overdose. After consuming 12 spoons of coffee, both eating and drinking it, I started feeling dizzy, disoriented, and even a bit high.
I had researched how much caffeine it would take to kill me and found out that I would need to drink about 24 more cups. That’s when I realized it wasn’t going to work, so I decided to try something else.
I swallowed about 12 antibiotic pills, but that’s when my brother intervened, and we ended up at the hospital.
The doctor said I wasn’t going to die just yet, but I needed immediate treatment.
There’s no rational explanation for suicide, but the pain I felt was overwhelming, beyond what words can express. I had convinced myself that I should’ve done something to help my friend or at least seen him one last time, and the guilt consumed me.
After his death, I found myself unable to talk to anyone for two reasons. First, the pain was too great to express, and second, all of my friends were also his best friends. Talking to them would only make things harder for both of us.
So, I started writing. I wrote because I couldn’t express how I felt in any other way. I wrote pages upon pages every day, and whenever I felt overwhelmed or had something I needed to release, I’d grab a piece of paper and write it all down.
I’ve written more pages than I can count—over 10,000, I’m sure, and I still have them to this day. Writing became my refuge, the one thing that helped me stay sane. I found a sense of magic in it, a relief like nothing else.
A year later, during my first year of college, I found myself sitting in an accounting exam that I hadn’t studied for. I didn’t even bother reading the questions because I knew I wouldn’t be able to answer them. I had hoped to get some help from my classmates, but that didn’t work out either.
At that point in my life, I was still searching for myself—trying to figure out who I was, what I enjoyed, and what career path I should pursue.
With at least an hour left before I could leave the exam hall, I did what I always do—I wrote. For the next hour, I lost myself in my writing. I wrote down my thoughts, feelings, and plans. Somewhere in the middle of it, I realized something: writing was the one thing I never got bored of, despite my restlessness and indecisiveness.
I went home that day filled with joy because I knew I had found my passion. The moment that thought clicked in my mind, I was certain this was it.
Since then, I’ve written over 30,000 pages, and I know that number might seem unbelievable, but that’s what passion does to you. It’s something you never get tired of, something that makes time disappear when you’re doing it.
Today, I have even more reasons to continue writing, but maybe I’ll save those for another post.
If you haven’t found your passion yet, keep searching. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of discovering something you never want to let go of.