It has happened to all of us. You hear a song that takes you back to a specific time and place. Whether it be your childhood, college or an experience that has drastically changed your life, for the good or the bad, you’re transformed back into that moment in time.

Last weekend Monica and I worked from home and she played music from her Gaslight Anthem Pandora station (we’re obsessed with this Jersey band so much so that I think we’ve convinced Farrah to come out to their next show). While some obscure bands came up that we never heard of, I was ecstatic when Jimmy Eat World’s “A Praise Chorus” came on.

“Are you gonna live your life wonderin’ standing in the back lookin’ around?
Are you gonna waste your time thinkin’ how you’ve grown up or how you missed out?
Things are never gonna be the way you want.
Where’s it gonna get you acting serious?
Things are never gonna be quite what you want.
Even at 25, you gotta start sometime.
…
Someone’s gonna ask you what it’s all about
Stick around nostalgia won’t let you down
Someone’s gonna ask you what it’s all about
Whatcha gonna have to say for yourself?”

Have you ever wondered what God put you on this earth to do? Around the time that this song came out I was in high school completely conflicted about which college to go to, what to major in, how my life would pan out, and it freaked me out beyond explanation.

Some of us follow a path unpaved and unrecognizable to others to pursue things we’re passionate about. Often we’re criticized for being different and doing things our way, whether it be writing, music or architecture.

When I decided to become a music journalist and took on three unpaid internships one after the other, my parents weren’t too pleased. I remember graduating college and running into my high school music teacher in our local bookstore while I was paging through issues of Rolling Stone, telling him that I was sending article pitches to the magazine in hopes to one day write for them.

He looked at me in disbelief, saying “Good luck,” but with the kind of sentiment that was more like, “Come on down from Cloud 9. Be more realistic, that’ll never happen.”

Three years later, I now freelance for RollingStone.com and have had one of those pitches published.

Sometimes passion and determination stem from wanting to prove people wrong and going against the norm of that 9-5 job everyone expects of you. I can’t say that it’s been easy, but as each day passes I realize more and more that this has become my path and what God has intended for me to do at this point in my life.

Two weeks away from my 26th birthday, I feel fortunate that if I ever do meet Jimmy Eat World, I can tell them what it’s all about.

Do you ever question what God put you on earth for?

Photo Credit: Wendy Hu