Many people today fail to realize that their jobs have a heavy impact on their mental health. When going to college oftentimes people will pick the major they believe will make them the most money, not what will lead them to a job that makes them happy.

This summer I spent my second year working at Banner Day Camp. Banner is a camp where kids from Lake County, Cook County and even downtown Chicago come to have an action packed day.

For the past two years I have taught swim lessons and lifeguarded for Banner. Never in a million years did I think I would find so much joy from teaching kids kindergarten to sixth grade how to swim.

Everyday I would go to camp and teach five swim lessons to groups of three to five campers. These campers showed me what it is like to have a sense of accomplishment. Watching the children progress from barely being able to tread water for 30 seconds to mastering freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke is amazing. Each time my groups of kids would pass into the next level I would feel so overjoyed. The looks on their faces and the thank yous, for how great of a teacher I have been, are all I needed to make my day more special than the last.

Three days a week I would teach lessons and swim during free swim with a 5-year-old boy who had epilepsy. I was assigned to swim with him in case he were to have a seizure in the water. I was able to make a very strong connection with this boy. I started teaching him the first day of camp in Bass, which is one of the lower levels. When I would ask him to do his “windmill arms”(freestyle) he would just bring his arms out of the water and splash around. When it came to treading he refused at first. Going into 4-foot water was scary to him. The first time he was asked by the evaluator to tread water he just hung on the wall and wouldn’t move. That’s when I knew I was going to have a challenge.

So I made up a game. I would take him off the wall and I’d pretend to be a boat. I’d make sounds to sound like the motor and he’d kick off the wall. But then I would make the boat break down and he would have to tread water until the boat was suddenly fixed and could bring him to shore. Guess what? The game worked. He very quickly learned to tread water for 30 seconds and was able to pass into the next level, Trout.

Once we were in Trout we had a new road bump. The diving board. Going off the diving board was not a skill required to pass any of the swim levels. But I wanted to watch him conquer his fears. All his friends would go off and he would watch them. He would gaze at the board as if he wished to go off it, but was being held back. So one day I asked if he wanted to go off. He said no at first. About 10 minutes later he asked if he could watch me go off the board. I said sure, so I jumped off and showed him how when I would only go about 4-feet under water, and then came straight back up. I then offered if he would want to go off if him and I jumped off at the same time, he said that was fine.

I got on one of the diving boards and he got on the other, we walked together to the edge of the board. I looked at him and said “are you ready?” he nodded yes. I counted up to three and then we jumped off together. That’s it, he had done it with no effort at all. He quickly swam to the side of the wall and smiled as he got out. I ran over to him and hugged him. He looked up with the biggest smile on his face and said “I want to go again.”

Moments like these at Banner make me realize that I have found a job that makes me happy. As I say to my friends from Banner all the time, “It’s not for the money it’s for the happiness that it brings me.”

I feel so very lucky to have already found something that I am passionate about. I am planning on going to DePaul to study psychology and hopefully become a psychologist. Banner has made me realize that not only do I want to be a psychologist, but I want to be a child psychologist.

I encourage everyone to try to find what they are passionate about as soon as they can. If that means you have to get a second job to make ends meet, then so be it. Don’t let money, or your peers be the reason you are not happy with what you do. A job is not only about making money but about providing the world with your best ability.

But unfortunately many people don’t go after the fields they really wish they could pursue because they feel it will take too much work, doesn’t make enough money or that they are just not good enough.

These are all silly reasons to not go after what you are good at. In the end what makes us truly happy is feeling accomplished. Positive rewards can give us a high like no other. So why push this feeling away? Yes, it may be hard to start over. Yes, it may be hard to find exactly what it is that you’re passionate about. But once you do, your life will become a lot better. I know Banner has changed my life for the better. Unfortunately I have to wait a whole year to go back to what I love.

But it’s worth the wait.