Travelling + Theatre = Passion.

This was the equation for me. Ever since I could remember, my answer  to people asking me what I want to do is travel the world and do theatre.  

How could I implement it? I didn’t know. I just had faith in myself.

As years passed, I went on through school, not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. Professors in school were telling me, “You are good at this”, “You are good at that” and that I should make them my career, but none of them sounded like IT! As the final year was coming closer, I was getting more and more nervous as to what bachelor to pick. I heard about an International and European Studies bachelor that encompassed many things, like politics, economy, some international business, international relations and many more. I applied and got in. Was that my passion?

Starting university, I joined AIESEC in raising opportunities for internationals to come to Greece for volunteering. It was quite a hard semester as I was trying to adjust to university life, living alone, studying and my AIESEC work. Through AIESEC I got questioned a lot, “What are your strengths?”, “What are your values?”, but no concrete answer would come up. They used to say that these would help me reach a deeper level of self-awareness and understand what is my true passion. It was one day in the second semester, as I was doing a one-to-one meeting with my leader, that she showed me a video of a woman talking about career choices. She said, “You often get asked what do you want to do when you grow up? What is your dream job? Is it hard to answer? Well what would the answer be if I ask you which is the problem in this world you most want to tackle? This is your compass”. Those words left me speechless in that moment. I have never thought of this side. But was it that moment when  I figured out my passion?

Months later I went to Cairo to volunteer with AIESEC in a project involving refugees. Getting to know a different culture was quite challenging yet delightful. I would immerse myself in the crowd in Khan el Khalili market and try bargaining at some shop. The feeling the country gave me was so intense. The passion and appetite for life! We were a very big group from many countries and when going out after some point we used to sit and talk about our homes, our differences and our cultures. There I heard about a woman who got burned alive in her country with her dead husband just because her husband had died before her. The feeling it gave me was so strong. I was so angry about it, so annoyed. I wanted to do something about it. I knew deep down inside me I had to act. I didn’t know then though what was this urge. Was it passion this time?

After trying so many things, I knew that I was good in theatre and communicating with people. I used to get a lot of appraisals about my acting and my communication skills. The only things I knew were my strengths and I liked them. Giving it some thought, I could remember other times in life I had the same feeling. I tried connecting the dots and there it was. A value. Social Injustice was something that touched me and drove me to do something to change it. The picture was clearer now but still, where did my studies come into it. Going home from downtown one day, in a microbus, as the air was breezing in my face and I was reflecting on my life, there it was. I could try to work in the United Nations, being sent in different countries and dealing with socially vulnerable groups and empowering them through theatre.

If you want an experience like this, challenge yourself and volunteer abroad through aiesec.org