If you want to find your hobbies and interests, first look at your own emotions.
You don't need a grand reason or a significant trigger for everything you want to do.
The things that truly captivate your heart often stem from reasons that might seem trivial at first glance, or from minor triggers that you would normally pass by.
To catch those moments without missing them, it is important to pay attention to your own emotions on a daily basis.
My love for traveling abroad also started with a trivial and flighty trigger.
Now, I love traveling abroad and have been to about 30 countries.
Since my college days, I worked part-time jobs to travel abroad, and even after I started working, I took time off to go.
Perhaps, traveling abroad is what I spend the most time and money on in my life.
The trigger for that was the shojo manga 'Beautiful World' that I read when I was in junior high school.
The author is Rina Morimoto.
(I think those who were readers of Ribon at the time will understand this nostalgia!)
The story is about a 15-year-old girl who goes on a one-year exchange program to Australia and falls in love with a local boy.
As a junior high student, I was thrilled, thinking, 'How wonderful!'
The sparkle of longing for love made not only Australia but overseas in general look sparkling to me.
When I tell my high school and college acquaintances that the reason I became interested in overseas was a shojo manga, they are surprised.
I majored in international politics in college and also took lectures on international cooperation.
What I am most interested in is conflict resolution studies and refugee issues.
And during long breaks, I would go backpacking around Asia and the Middle East.
It sounds intense.
It sounds hardcore.
Just listing them makes my seriousness seep through.
But the real trigger for my interest is something as simple as a longing for love.
It is not something very noble at all.
When I went to an art exhibition before, I found a favorite story.
It was about a book received on a 13th birthday that shaped the rest of a life.
That is the story of a man named Ruskin.
Ruskin was a British art critic who supported the Pre-Raphaelite painters.
For his 13th birthday present, he was given Samuel Rogers' collection of poems, 'Italy'.
In later years, looking back on that time, Ruskin even said, 'The entire direction of my life's vitality stems from that gift..'
A book you happen to pick up at 13 can change your life.
Ruskin firmly caught that feeling.
Triggers might be lurking in trivial daily life.
Grand reasons, reasons that seem well-received by society—those might be useful for persuading people around you.
To do what you want to do, you often need the approval and cooperation of those around you.
For that time, it is not bad to be armed with theory.
However, it is useless to search for interests starting from such reasons.
To find your interests, you first need to look at your own emotions.
I am in the middle of a 1-month writing habit challenge.
Today is the 25th day.