Written by Kayli Pascal-Martinez, Blue Zones Project - Hawai‘i Ambassador

I finished my first year of college and it was nothing like how I’d expected it to be. Considering the fact that the majority of my classes were held online, I had a unique school year. Everyone’s experience in college is different but I’m sure it was difficult for people to adjust to being online full-time to going back on campus. Through the first semester at nursing school, I found myself asking, “Am I where I need to be? Or am I here because of the pressure of pleasing those around me?” There was a constant battle in my head about whether I should continue to pursue a career in nursing or quit while I’m ahead and start something I genuinely want to do. It was a difficult time for me to decide what my plan was and I searched for answers and prayed to God for guidance. When I did that, I started noticing these non-coincidental signs appearing out of nowhere. 

One day I had some downtime and decided to pick up a book I haven’t read in a couple of months, “Higher is Waiting” by Tyler Perry. I opened it up to the chapter that I left off on and it was titled, “Working with Intention.” Tyler wrote about how if you’re having recurring thoughts about a desire to do a certain kind of work that you’re not engaged in right now, that it’s not by chance. “It’s your destiny calling. Truly, this is the very thing you’re supposed to be doing in your life,” he wrote. As I read this, I had smiled with joy as I knew that this was a sure sign from God that He has a plan for me and will guide me in the direction I need to go in order to reach my full potential. Tyler had mentioned that the only way higher can be reached is by moving toward it. This spoke volumes to me because I knew that if I wanted a change in my life, it’s up to me to make it. 

Since then I have transferred to another university in hopes to become a journalist or possibly a public relations specialist. I feel like I’ve grown tremendously this year and have learned a lot about myself and what I want to do with my life. I know that it’s not going to be an easy journey, but I believe that this is God’s plan for me and I have faith that He will be there for me through it all. I can relate this to the Purpose aspect from Blue Zones Project Power 9^®. In order for me to feel good about where I was headed I needed to figure out what my purpose was. I’d say a lot of people are still out there looking for that in their lives, and it’s definitely not easy… at least for me it wasn’t. Personally if it wasn’t for my strong support system and my spiritual connection with God, I would most likely still be in a major I was not happy in. 

For those of you out there that are or were, in the same situation as I was, I hope you have the courage to look inside yourself and discover what you want out of your life and if you’re ready to chase that dream and make it a reality.