Hi, my name is Hudson Daughtry, and I want to ask you one question. What are you passionate about? Well, we’ve all been asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And I’ve always said I wanted to be involved in the movie industry. Ever since I was young, I had a great interest in movies, wondering, how did these movies get made? The answer brought me to movie directors. They decide things like how the style of the movie is and how the movie is interpreted. They also decide things like how the actors interpret their characters and how the movie gets you invested in the plot. So, I thought to myself, how do I pursue this passion without giving up? My goal is that when I graduate high school, I want to go to college and get involved in the film industry. But for some people, the idea of going to college can seem overwhelming and they might give up on their passion easily. So more importantly, the question for all of us is, how do we give up on our passion without giving up? When I say I want to be involved in the film industry, I can do things such as creating videos and practicing editing to further pursue my passion. Over the last couple of years, I have had multiple opportunities in different classes to make different videos for projects, with one of them being where I commentate over an “El Clasico” soccer match and interview Messi. These opportunities helped me refine my skills and further pursue my passion. On my most recent project, I got to work with my friend William on a video based on The Odyssey. Well, collaborating with others can help you get perspectives from other people and also help you improve upon each other. Now, let’s be honest, pursuing your passion is not easy at all. People easily give up on their passion because obstacles arise. A study was done by Gallup, where only 15% of people that they asked actually admitted to enjoying their job. That means 85% of people that they asked said that they were unhappy with their current career. I looked up the top three searches for why people give up on their passion, and the top three was the fear of judgment from other people, giving others the power to influence their decisions and opinions, and the fear of failure from pursuing that passion. When people don't see their success, they could lose out on affecting the world in a positive way. Steve Jobs once said that the only way to do great work is to do what you love. Without Steve Jobs creating Apple in a garage, we wouldn’t have the iPhone, which we use every day for communication. He was passionate about his career and changed the world by pursuing it. If people have great ideas but give up on their idea or passion, they could potentially be taking away that idea from coming into fruition and changing the world for the better. That brings me to the whole point of this talk. It all comes down to passion. You shouldn’t give up on your passion or job for some idea or some job that you’ll be unpassionate about. If you are passionate about a job or idea that you have, then you should go for it. It doesn't even have to be the original idea or job that you had. If you are passionate about something, you should do what you can to make it happen. Imagine if George Lucas never made “Star Wars”. Wouldn’t that be crazy? If he didn’t do what he wanted to do then and go through the struggles of what was considered at the time such a ridiculous plot, “Star Wars” would have never existed and be as huge of a franchise as it is today. We need to encourage each other to pursue our passion and work with others towards our goals. Imagine if we started things like after-school clubs with each other. After-school clubs with people that had the same passion as us. So, what are you passionate about? I want to encourage you to pursue your dreams and make any changes that you need to make to spend your life doing what makes you happy. Thank you. (Applause)
