In doing what you do, don't forget what you like

This past weekend I went on a retreat with a volunteer group on campus called LionSHARE (insert shameless plug here) that provides students with volunteer opportunities.

At about this time, one of our advisers decided it would be a good time to make us start thinking.

He handed us a paper and asked to fill out the questions one-by-one. The first two questions asked what our core values are and what we like to do. The following questions led us to what we could do to improve LionSHARE, but it was those first two that really made me think.

Our adviser emphasized to us that the questions were not asking what we are doing or what we think we have to do but what, in an ideal world, we like to do. In an ideal world those things would be the same -- but we don't live in an ideal world.

Particularly, in the world in which I live, I find myself surrounded by that struggle between what we like to do and what we have to do. It can be in our everyday lives. I don't like getting up early but I am at the Collegian at nine in the morning finishing my column because I have a deadline. Nobody likes the idea of taking English 202 but we have to if we ever want to graduate.

Sometimes it is more than the daily annoyances in our lives. Sometimes the struggle between what we like to do and what we have to do is a bigger part of our lives. Often I see people give up something they like, or love, because they don't have the time or because they are concentrating on something more practical, such as their major.

One of my closest friends is planning to graduate in three years. She plans to go to medical school and will be, I'm sure, a very successful doctor. To be fair, she has taken classes every summer and does truly love science. I didn't know anyone could get so excited about pictures of cells growing -- but she can.

But there are also a lot of other things she gets excited about, her pottery class and ice skating class to name a few. And I worry that if she tries to rush college, she may miss a multitude of other classes that will interest her just as much. She's one of those rare few who has the extra credits available and can take anything she wants, but she's not taking advantage of it.

Another friend used to dance. She's pretty good from what I understand. I wouldn't know. I've never seen her dance because she stopped first semester, just as I was getting to know her. I often think that I would have gotten to know her a lot quicker if I'd seen her dance.

I try to tell her that she should start again. But I don't think that it is really necessary to tell her that. She realizes it well enough on her very own when every time she sees someone else dance or looks at the poster on her wall of a little girl dancing. She was that little girl who once thrived on dancing, but I hope she hasn't grown up.

Recently she went to see a ballet company perform. When she got home we decided to watch Flashdance. At one in the morning as we turned the lights back on, tears rolled down her face. We stayed up talking for another hour. The entire time she was dancing and stretching. I asked her if she missed it and she said yes. That little girl had resurfaced, if only for a moment. I still think she should stick around a little longer.

Another little girl, my other best friend, used to make beautiful music on her flute. Again, I wouldn't know this firsthand because I've only heard her play once, in a private concert for me and one other fortunate person. To the best of my knowledge, it is one of the few performances she's given since high school.

She's traded marching bands for chemistry labs -- her other passion -- where she spends lots of her time. But I can still hear those distant notes deep inside wanting to be heard every time she listens to a piece of music and says, "I can play that." I silently worry that she won't be able to say that much longer if her flute stays silent in its case in the back of her closet.

Not that she doesn't love chemistry and that my other friend isn't content with her accounting major, but there's something beyond one's major. In each of us, there exists something that brings out a part of us we can't be in our daily routines.

I think of the first question most of ask when we meet someone for the first time, "What is your major?"

Perhaps we should be asking, "What do you like to do?"