This semester, I found myself doubting my value as a student, aspiring activist, and writer. I was constantly looking for that feeling that I seemed to have lost. Amidst the stress of senior year, the drive I felt for campus activism and creative writing seemed to have evaporated. Everything I used to love seemed diluted, flat, rendered into mere obligations to complete.

In whatever I do, I have always tried to follow my heart. When I fell in love with fiction and fantasy as a child, I decided that I wanted to be a writer. In college, I discovered the personal relevance of political activism in my life and became passionately involved in the Asian American Student Union and social justice issues. When I chose to become invested in these activities, I was following my heart. What I had chosen to pursue fulfilled me, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, in ways that transcended ordinary education or vocation.

So this year, when what I loved ceased to fulfill me completely, I began to turn away from activism and became more and more disengaged from my life. I missed meetings. I lost touch with friends. I missed meals and slept too late. I stopped writing for weeks and thought that I might never start again. And I felt crushed by this enormous sense of guilt, that I wasn’t living up to my own and others’ expectations of me. I didn’t know how to break out of my emotional stasis, of inaction. I yearned to be the better person in my mind, but I didn’t know how to reach that seemingly impossible ideal.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on responsibility and obligation in conjunction with following a passion. Of course, you must follow your heart and pursue what you love. However, maybe succumbing to every emotional impulse in the course of that pursuit isn’t always healthy. Perhaps it is best to let your heart determine a course of action at the beginning. Let the heart guide the direction of an arrow. But after the arrow takes flight, concentrate all of your energy for it to shoot off into the distance, as far as possible without falling.

A professor told me that if one positions oneself as an activist, one begins to accept the roles and responsibilities that activism demands. I am beginning to feel the impact and implications of that advice. Activism, writing, and any other life long pursuits, are not only passions, but also commitments. When I make a commitment to be an activist, it is not enough for me to only engage in activism when I am deeply inspired. Nor is it enough for me to passively accept my apathy and await forces of inspiration to lift me from my disengagement. Commitment is a choice. Choosing to accept responsibilities and do the work even when I feel uninspired is perhaps the greatest and most difficult act for me to make use of my life. I am willing to make that commitment.