The first time I was truly passionate about something was film. I discovered it in probably 10th grade in high school or so. I was lucky. None of my friends had any idea what they wanted to do. My brother didn't know what he wanted to do. I toyed with the idea of traveling for a bit and working in the industry here in LA and starting college later, if I needed to. I was severely over school - I was bored, rebellious, and too smart for my own good. I also really liked drugs. But I was mostly done answering to people and playing the game.

I got a 4.0 through high school not because I was smart or put 200% effort in. It was because I played the game. I went to class and did all my homework and respected the teachers and "opened" up to them. But I also spent any time I could not in class. If any of my classes had a substitute, was generally boring, had a test that I finished early, had group presentations, anything - I would leave class, go to my video class, talk to my teacher there and then either fuck around on facebook, edit, prep for something, or sneak out the back door and go wander around town. Our campus was closed but we had a little loading dock that opened passed the outer gate. As long as the security guards weren't right there, I could be in my car in 2 minutes flat. I really didn't like my time wasted. I would run errands or do other homework or grab lunch with my folks, grandmother, or boyfriend (who was already graduated). And then be back for the next period.

Anyways, I didn't think college was what I wanted to do. But everyone was applying to college so I applied to NYU and surprisingly got in. So I went.

Then my passion for film very quickly evaporated. I realize now that I was really passionate about was working with amazing people and creating amazing things - the medium mattered much less. It also turned out that theres a lot of shit you have to deal with before you get to simply create. Like months and/or years of organizational pre-production work. And money. And budgets. And begging. I hate begging. I just wanted to create stuff.

So I dropped out after 2 years (well, officially I took a leave of absence and really kept all my doors open). I worked on student films. I worked on editing projects for money to make ends meet. (My parents stopped the little bit of money they were sending me when I left school.) I hung out with a lot of people who were still being footed by their parents and let them buy the drugs. It was a fun time of my life. No money. Some drugs. Creating cool stuff. Editing all night and day. Every day was fresh. Sometimes I had to be in the studio at 9am. Sometimes I would buy a bottle of vodka and finish it by 9am. No shame NYC days. I wouldn't call it passion though. I never saw myself doing it for another month - but somehow I did it for almost a year.

Then I broke up with my boyfriend, took my security deposit and last $500 check and ran away to Australia. No idea what I was going to do with my life. I hung out with wildly successful people in their late-20s to early-30s. I've since discovered that that's the age people get their shit together, start making real money, and everything seems to work out awesomely. I wanted real money.

So I got home, got a job, was bored, created videos, did a LOT more drugs (since there were none in Australia). And then I discovered this whole creating shit on the computer thing. It's basically video editing without the need for large budgets and teams of people. It's creative and it's pretty and much quicker. So I taught myself how to design. And then HTML/CSS. Then JS. Now I'm creating full blown websites and working with shitty java backends and okay php/mysql shit and awesome node.js shit and I read every day about the absolutely amazing things people are creating with code. I get to take something I know nothing about, watch a couple tutorials, read a couple articles, and then create something I didn't even know I could create. It's epic. I don't get bored anymore. I love it. I love every day. I get to do something new every fucking day!

So, to answer your question - At 16 and then again at 23/24 and then who knows.

When did you find what you're passionate about (if at all)?

I found out that I am passionate about living without money after reading "The Man Who Quit Money." Unfortunately I discovered this during my Junior year of college and had a bit of debt already.

You still have time.

Some time during junior year of high school, I started researching LSD. I think I actually realized I was passionate about psychoactive compounds the first time I smoked weed, just before starting senior year; it simply fascinated me that a chemical could do something like that to my perception. MDMA ratcheted that up a notch, and then one day psilocybin mushrooms absolutely blew my mind apart. There's simply nothing more interesting in the world than the psychedelic experience--not the drug experience, mind you, but the direct experience of spiritual essence that the drugs lead you to if you take them in the right setting. It's the end and the beginning. I feel like all my passions sprout from whatever energy source it was that I first directly witnessed during that first mushroom trip.

Right now it's taking the form of music. I first realized that was what I liked to do the most some time during freshman year of college when I got involved heavily with LSD and realized music was a language I could speak.

1982, my first year at Uni. Majored in general engineering, because I didn't know what I wanted to do. All first-year engr students had to take "Intro to CS", where we learned this weirdo computer language called "C". I realised I had a knack for it, and oh-my-god the sense of relief I had. I knew instantly that this was something I could do all day and not get bored. Switched my major and didn't look back. Still not bored.

I found mine when I was contemplating going to art school or hopping into the work force for IT related work. I was watching a Nikon DF teaser trailer and the opening line "My father used to say, find the one thing you can do all day without looking at your watch. That's your passion." At the time I was pretty glum and that just resonated with me. My passions at the time (and still are) photography and computers. I ended up making the decision that I didn't want to ruin what photography does for me (being a stress reliever and such) by making it a career so I made the executive decision that day to pursue an IT related career and hopefully pursue and art degree later in my life.

I really enjoy what thenewgreen said though. It's a great point and keep trying something new each day!

Talents are developed, the more you do something the more talented you be at it. I think it's also worth noting that passions are very fluid and evolve over time.

If you're planning on going to college you'll find there are clubs for every single thing you could possibly be interested in. Use that to you're advantage.

I'm not sure I've found a passion, other than possibly learning new things. I'm a dabbler. I like trying out new hobbies bur rarely do the deep dive and become consumed by them. What I'm find though, is that dabbling in things isn't enough. Hobbies require commitment and they won't grab you unless you give them an honest chance. Skimming the surface isn't really enough. There's so many things to do and try though!

I don't really know. I've always enjoyed learning about new things and trying to explain them to other people, but life sort of gets in the way of doing that full time. Between loving being a teaching assistant for introductory computer science courses and having profs (especially in math) that left me thinking "Hey, I could teach this better", I think it was university that made me realize that deep down, teaching others is a passion of mine.

Of course, that's not at all what I'm doing now, and I'm not even on track to teaching as a career and don't know when I will be. It's okay though. That's just how life works. I work a job I often enjoy with people I like, and I'm slowly working towards building a website where I can just brain-dump all the cool stuff I know, so hopefully I'll get more fulfillment with that.

I guess I don't really have any advice for you other than to keep learning. You don't know what you're passionate about, but you're probably passionate about something. The answer is out there somewhere, and you just have to find it. Don't expect it to hit you like a lightning bolt. I mean, it could, who am I to say? But it might be that you just have to pick something that's mildly interesting to you and work at it for a while. Passion comes with time. Learn to play an instrument or solve a Rubiks cube or juggle or memorize PI to 100 decimal places, or all of those things. Volunteer with some organization that's mildly interesting to you. Just keep doing things and you'll find it.

Also, screw talent. I play a few instruments (most very poorly, some averagely, in my mind). People think I'm talented. They don't see the amount of time I've put into learning them, and they don't know that it feels like trying to make a hole in a wall by bashing your head against it. Sure, talent helps, it'll get you there faster, but not giving up is much more important.

Sorry if this is kind of rambling. It's been a long day and I'm tired.

tl;dr: Keep learning. Don't quit. Try new things. Stay humble.