"So what are you most passionate about?"

After failing to answer the "passion question" which ultimately led to me not getting the job offer at Microsoft, I wanted to do a little retrospect about the things that I think I am passionate about. As I have said earlier, I consider myself passionate about a lot of things. However, since I never took the time to sit down, arrange my thoughts, and think about the things that I am very passionate about, expressing these verbally to someone would probably just result in that someone not really understanding what I am trying to express. And so I think that organizing and listing these thoughts from my mind will help me not only understand myself more but also, help others understand the things that I am passionate about. I will start by listing down the things that I think I am passionate about.

1. I think I am passionate about technology. In particular, I like following stories about cutting-edge tech gadgets, startups, and rumors about tech companies. Every morning, I use Flipboard to browse and read stories from Mashable, Engadget, TechCrunch, FastCompany, etc.. Going through these helps me stay afloat with the rapid pace in which technology moves. It also helps me learn about the next big things in technology and how they can be used to solve our day to day problems.

2. I think I am passionate about proving to myself that I can do very challenging things. Whether its at work, job interviews, or just for fun, I like to be constantly challenged. I like to work on things that nobody wants to do and do a very good job at it. I especially like it if it's something that I have never done before. Maybe this is just for the sake of self validation or a crave for a praise from somebody but this is something that I am very hungry for at the moment.

3. I like to think that someday, I will make a product that is really awesome and that it will solve a particular problem that a lot of people have - and so I think I am passionate about observing regular and simple problems that people encounter in their everyday lives and going through a mental exercise of how I can use technology to solve them.

4. I have also recently discovered that I think I have this passion and obsession about making customers really happy and satisfied. I have started to go the extra mile in order to validate their needs and make sure that I build what they want. Somebody once told me that quality - in the eyes of the customers - simply mean the presence of what they want to see and the absence of what they don't want to see - and this is now what I always say to myself whenever I build something for the customers.

5. I think I am passionate about keeping myself fit. I love hiking, swimming, biking, and running. During the cold season, I tend to slack off, but I make it up during the spring and the summer season.

6. I think I am passionate about discovering great places to eat good food! I like going out with families and friends and try out good food from different restaurants.

So I think that's that. But wait! Now that I think about it, I have never done a lot of successful things with most of the passions that I have just listed above! I have never developed a successful product that a lot of people will use - nor have I ever published even a simple app to the app store. I have made some customers happy but I am still looking for something to brag about. I have never used any of the cutting-edge technologies that I have been learning from the tech media to better the lives of people. I have never applied life lessons that I have learned from Jeff Bezos, Jeff Weiner, Mark Zuckerberg, or other great CEOs to build a kick-ass company or simply, just build a great product. I have never gained any muscles or even a 6 pack ab from doing all of the physical activities that I have been engaged in although I have most certainly gained a couple of pounds already from eating good food from good restaurants.. I have never.. I have never, I have never!!

I think the thing with passion is that something great must come out of it - otherwise, how can you call it a passion? Wikipedia defines passion as "A term applied to a very strong feeling about a person or thing. Passion is an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for something.". I feel strongly about these things but it is probably not strong enough as nothing great has ever come out of them yet. In fact, maybe I should not call them passions at all - maybe they are just "interests" or "hobbies".. or "Likes" in the context of Facebook.

Well, this exercise has proven to be really good and helpful! Now I think I know what I need to do to truly answer the question.. "So what are you most passionate about?" I need to erase my passion list from my brain, start from scratch, and then when asked what is the thing that I am very passionate about, I would probably just answer "Well, I am still figuring that out.."... and probably, a good starting point for me would be to accept that other job offer from that start-up company..