This is part 2 of my 2 part series called “The Cheapest Way to Pay for College is to Drop Out.” Read part 1 here.

I go to a state college. Needless to say, some of the people here aren’t the most passionate or motivated individuals, but I’d say about 90% of kids at my college are just “going through the motions.” They’re what I call college zombies.

Aim for the heads!

A college zombie might be harder to spot than you think, because it includes people in every group, clique, gender, creed, and so on. It doesn’t have anything to do with how they spend their free time, or their GPA. A lot of really intelligent students are college zombies in fact, but when you know what you’re looking for, they’re easy to spot. Since 90% of students are college zombies, it’s probably easier to tell when someone isn’t one. So how do you tell? Ask them about their major, and what they plan on doing when they graduate.

You know that look people get when they’re talking about a guy or girl that they’re really into? Their eyes get big and deep, and their face takes on that spaced-out dreamy, I-just-hit-the-million-dollar-jackpot look. The emotion they’re expressing is passion. And if they get that look when they’re talking about their future job, put your shotgun away, because they ain’t a zombie.

I ain’t no zombie!

Don’t consider this a derogatory term. I used to be a zombie too! And I still have zombie tendencies from time to time. If you’re wondering whether you are one, just sit down in a quiet room and think about your future job. Paint a vivid picture on that screen in you mind. Imagine yourself doing some of the day-to-day activities your future job will require. Don’t idealize it. Make it realistic. Imagine some of the possible hardships you’ll have to deal with every day.

What is the general emotional theme of your visualization? Is it a nice, warm feeling of expectation, like you feel when you’re about to see your boyfriend/girlfriend? Or is it more of a dark, sickening emotion? Maybe it’s nothing at all. If it’s anything but the first one, do some introspection and ask whether you’re really on the right path in life. If you DO have that feeling, excellent. Keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll see you in a few years when you’re out there changing the world.

What’s the big deal?

Enthusiasm, zeal, passion; it goes by different names, but this emotion, this “burning desire” is the number #1 most important factor of success in anything. If you really don’t care about what you’re doing, then you will never put in the necessary work into being excellent at it. Don’t short change yourself. Don’t be a zombie.

There’s a cure!

There’s always a cure, isn’t there? Well this one is a lot simpler than injecting yourself with some weird, glowing green anti-zombie vaccine. Just like you can’t make yourself fall in love with a person, you can’t make yourself feel passion for your job. It’s either there or it isn’t. So finding out what you’re passionate about is the first step in living a successful, fulfilling life.

The cure is to listen to that little voice in your head. If you don’t like that term, call it your heart, subconscious, conscience, your intuition, soul searching, God, Jiminy Cricket; whatever, it’s all the same thing.

Go deep inside yourself and ask yourself what you really want to do. This may be harder than it sounds; especially if you’re not very introspective or have never used meditation before. It will take some practice. In a lot of ways your subconscious is like a room. You might have to straighten up the furniture and clean up the cobwebs before you can get any work done in there. But once you do it’s pretty awesome.

I’m still a novice at meditation, so I can’t give you any guides on that. But you can do the little exercise I listed above right now at the computer. Just sit there quietly. Shut your door. Turn off the music. Turn off the TV. Turn off all the damn noise that has let you avoid listening to that voice for so long. You know it’s there. You’ve always known. Quit shutting it out and just

Listen

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