In “Its What I Do”, Lynsey Addario tells the story of her grandmother’s choice to marry her current husband Ernie instead of her previous boyfriend, Sal. Her grandmother doesn’t regret marrying Ernie; he has always been good to her and gave her freedom. But she reminisces on how her relationship with Sal had a passion that Ernie never gave. In the end she chose Ernie over Sal because Sal had no money and Ernie could better provide for her, but at the end of the story there is a hint of regret as she wonders what her life would have been like if she had married Sal.

Addario remembered her grandmother’s story, and declared that she “never wanted to regret the kisses [she] missed.” Throughout the rest of the book, Addario follows her passion not only in her relationships but with her work. She makes sure that she doesn’t regret missing a thing.

The theme of Addario’s memoir is to follow your passion wherever it leads you, and the theme of my passion blog is that even if you think something is true about you, a new experience can change that. A time that reminds me of this is that I always thought that I didn’t like children. I pictured children crying in restaurants, drawing on walls, everything my little sister did that drove me crazy. It wasn’t until I worked as a counselor at a summer camp two years ago that my view changed. I can vividly remember at my interview when I was asked about my previous experience with children. Somehow, with my blank face and vague comment, I still got the job. That summer I saw a new side to kids—the silly, spontaneous, loving, trusting side of them that outweighed everything I previously knew.

Maybe, just maybe, I thought, other opinions that I held and characteristics that I used to describe myself weren’t all permanent. Maybe new experiences could alter my views. Time would only continue to reveal to me that the more life I lived, the more I was shaped to reflect these wider experiences.