I've never considered myself very lucky.

I'm not the one who wins door prizes at golf tournaments or hits the royal flush in video poker. I've never caught a bridal bouquet at the wedding, either (though it's debatable if I've even tried).

But I do believe in the adage that luck can only get you so far. The rest — meaning, what you want out of your life — is really up to you.

This has never been more apparent than this past year, when I started teaching full time at Kapi'olani Community College.

I'm surrounded by twentysomethings, all searching for meaning in their lives. They're worried about everything from getting married to gaining five pounds. They're questioning their relationships, debating between majors and sinking into debt. They don't know what they want to do with their lives — but they know they want to do something more.

They're hoping for some divine intervention, that their purpose in life will emerge from someone's status update on Facebook.

They're freaking out.

I've had long conversations with my students, many of whom are hiding in college classrooms to avoid the inevitable "real world" that lurks outside. It's not that they lack skills, talent or even confidence. They just don't know what they want out of life — and, to make it worse, they don't know how to figure it out.

I can relate.

When I was in college, I thought I knew what I had wanted to do. Teach writing. Simple.

But after a series of unexpected events — volunteering as the newspaper adviser at my alma mater, losing my academic tuition waiver for graduate school, reluctantly taking a job at the college newspaper — I found myself, at 23, boarding a plane to Chicago to start the master's program in journalism at Northwestern University.

I never thought, even just a year prior, that I would wind up a newspaper reporter, interviewing lawmakers, covering volleyball games and writing prolifically about Salvinia molesta. That wasn't on my master to-do list.

Being a reporter, though, wasn't much of a deviation for me. I had always loved to write and read. But more importantly, I had always questioned authority, I have no filter, and I'm curious to a fault. (Just ask my mom.)

Add all that together. Reporter.

People would often ask me if the job was stressful. Yeah, it was, especially when sources didn't call you back by deadline and story angles changed after the 3 p.m. budget meeting.

But at the same time, I was doing something I loved. I was writing, I was meeting new people, I was learning more about the world around me.

A study that started in 1960 followed 1,500 business school graduates for 20 years. Of those students, 1,245 said their first priority was to make a lot of money. The other 255 decided they would follow their passions, do something they loved, and hoped the money would follow. By 1980, 101 had become millionaires. All but one came from the latter group.

I didn't become a journalist to make money. (Those in the business can stop laughing now.) But I got something more. I was able to do something I loved — write — and get paid for it. I want my students to feel the same way.

So I may not win roundtrip tickets to Maui or hit jackpots in Vegas. But now, teaching students about a profession I have mad respect for and freelancing on the side, I'm earning a paycheck doing something I actually enjoy.

So in that sense, I'm pretty lucky.