My Passion

I am going into my third week of my masters program and the more I get into it, the more I can see my goals getting closer to me.  I love what I do and some may not understand it but others embrace it.  I work at an HIV clinic and everyday I get inspired from various people.  How it began was when I was 15 years old and I thought that World AIDS Day (December 1^st of every year) would be a good cause to help.  So I decided to single-handedly plan a fun run at my high school and I did that for three years and it was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. 

I collected donations and from the lunch money of my friends, I was able to collect nearly $1,000 for those three years.  I do not think that is bad at all since I was collecting lunch money and no, I did not bully them to donate.  Some people get into causes because they have the disease or know someone close with it; but for me, it was just a calling.  I knew nothing about HIV, I did not know anyone with it, and at the time I could barely say Human Immunodeficiency Virus without stuttering over the word “Immunodeficiency”.

Today I went to do an interview with a Sacramento Kings player Darnell Jackson with a few of my colleagues and it was about the Greater Than AIDS movement that has been launched in 2009 and now partnering up with the NBA, the clinic I work for which is  CARES, and many other local and national partnerships.  There were two people who shared their story about living with HIV and every time I hear those stories, it just inspires me to fight harder so that my colleagues, who I consider as friends, can wake up one morning with a cure for them and wake up one morning knowing that their efforts erased this pandemic off the earth. 

You may not have that calling but please understand where my passion comes from.  It comes from seeing friends from the clinic disappearing, it comes from me hoping to find a cure so that we can kill this disease rather than it kill us.  Understand that this is preventable and we have the power to take the responsibly to talk to our partners about getting tested and using protection.