I feel that throughout life I’ve always been one to stick with my own opinions. I’ve never done something just to follow the crowd, but rather because I really wanted to do it. I think today, people need to recognize what their emotions are telling them to do, rather than ignore what we want deep down inside just for a different result. This is something that I must keep in mind for the future while planning a career.

Last Thursday, I attended Shakespeare and the Jesuits Part II. Dr. Robert Miola, a professor in the Classics and English Department, spoke about the claims that many people make about William Shakespeare being a Catholic. Many people believed this because of the analyzing of his works, in particular, Macbeth and Hamlet. In the play Macbeth, the main character, Macbeth becomes a Jesuit in the end. Another Catholic reference comes in the play Hamlet, through the mention of Purgatory.

Miola also discussed the two Jesuit priests during the time Shakespeare lived. These two priests, William Westin and Henry Garnet, were not viewed the same way Jesuit priests are viewed today. These two men were criticized as being fake, and were even sometimes thought of as practicing witch craft. Westin once performed an exorcism on man, by making him read the Bible. The devil eventually left the man and was no longer the extreme sinner he was before. This exorcism showed some that Westin really was a priest, but many still thought of him to be a fake.

Garnet was unfortunately killed for treason and was held for equivocation the last few years of his life. Equivocation is the use of ambiguous expressions in order to mislead someone. Garnet believed though that no one should equivocate, which is what many people did during this time period. Although many were Catholics in England at the time, Queen Elizabeth enforced Protestantism. In order to keep their lives, the public attended Protestant services to please the Queen. These people were guilty of equivocation, acting as one thing but really were something else. Garnet often got angry because he believed that you cannot deny who you really are.

Our class discussion on Tuesday about what we want to do as a career brought great fear to me. This has been the most common asked question in the past couple of years, and ironically, my least favorite question. I have not found one thing that I absolutely am thrilled about or am definitely sure that I would want to spend the rest of my life doing. And sometimes, if I do find something that could be a career possibility, mainly because of the money I will make, it is not something I love. Ashya’s story about her tutoring situation shed light onto the fact that if there is something you are passionate about and are extremely talented in, you must pursue this. Don’t do something just because of the money you will make or because of the status you will have. You have to listen to what you want to do and who you really are.

These two examples, Garnet’s beliefs on equivocation and Ashya’s discovery of her plans for the future, remind me that I must be patient when choosing plans for the future. I must listen to my passions and make sure I am not denying them, just to achieve something that I think is greater. If you choose something you are passionate about and really enjoy, you more than likely will make a bigger impact on someone than if you chose a career because of its face value. Like Garnet believed, you cannot pretend to be something you aren’t.