To Love It All: Good thing or bad thing?

It sounds like what you’re talking about is focus. I’ve always envied those people who seemed passionate about something and were able to maintain focus on that one thing long enough to master it and make a living do it. I don’t care what it is – teaching, biology, music. From an outsiders’ perspective, this seems ideal.

I’ve always had many, competing passions – I still do. A few years ago when I started my mindfulness meditation practice, I discovered that when I’m engaged in an activity I love, part of my brain is telling me what I could be doing with this time. If I’m playing guitar, some part of me was wondering if I should be painting. Now that I’m aware that I do this, it’s easier to drop the call to something else and truly be present for what I’m doing. While what I’m talking about is small, it had a huge effect on my life and career. I’m not great at anything. I’m just ok at many things.

What I’ve discovered is that those passionate, focused people also have many competing interests and passions. But they were able to focus enough on one thing at a time. This allowed them to master their field/craft. But there are those people who do work on a single goal, achieve it, then realize that it’s time for something else. I have friends who have completely changed careers.

Anyway, this is a “haven’t had enough coffee yet” way of advocating for focusing on one solid goal and concentrating your passion and effort there. But what do I know…

LET IT FIND YOU… let it find you..let it find you

You are simply a Renaissance man (“Polymath, a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas”). Source.

There’s nothing at all wrong with “loving it all”. Playing around with lots of pursuits is a great way to discover your particular affinities. But everyone owes it to themselves to, at some point, go deep.

Where jumping around from one pursuit to another becomes a problem is when you develop a pattern of playing around with something until it gets difficult. Coming up against your perceived limitations is not fun; you meet your own resistance to do hard work.

It’s in that uncomfortable space where you no longer feel competent that growth happens. If you meet that point of resistance and just flit over to something else to avoid the challenge, then you cheat yourself of that growth. You end up with a bunch of hobbies. Hobbies aren’t disciplines.

I heard something about Modigliani awhile back (though I can’t seem to find it now). It was said that he started off as a painter at age 14, but later took up sculpture because he was bad at sculpture. That says a lot. He recognized that it’s not just a matter of finding what you’re good at. The action is in working through what you’re bad at.

Creative types often have a hard time with focus. I write, draw, decorate, etc. and flit between activities depending on my inspiration in the moment. Just be glad you have a creative mind, better than the majority that live rigid and controlled lives. Bah!
Go with the flow…you can’t force creation.

ADD type also have a hard time with focus @Coloma

I believe the two are interconnected.

I have 4 BAs, 1 MA and am working on a second MA in an interdisciplinary field. I was also 3 classes short of a fifth BA and spent a year in med school.

In other words—I “love it all.” When I was a high school teacher, it gave me the best toolbox I could’ve ever asked for to teach—I could pull from all disciplines and lead amazing class discussions. I envied the people who took the straight line from A to Z and were more established in their lives (cars, houses, retirement accounts), but when it came to it, nah…. I am much happier with the fact I took the scenic route.

There are some benefits to being one tracked, yes, but in this day and age, I think it’s more beneficial (especially with the decline of ‘thinking’) to know how things are interconnected. I do NOT enjoy working with educators who only took education courses—they’re often tunnelvisioned and rigid. They don’t see how linguistics, psychology, child development, anatomy and physiology, sociology, cognitive sciences, economics, gender studies, foreign policy, etc, etc all directly interact with and affect what they think is the little box called “Education.”

So, bounce around. That’s just my perspective.

@rojo True, they certainly can be, but not always.
Personality type comes into play as well. A lot of creatives have more abstract thinking abilities and are often pegged as ADD because their brains are able to easily make disparate connections that evade many others ability to track and follow. They are seen as bouncing around between unrelated topics, when, in reality, they are able to make associations that escape most others.

I am an ENTP female, quite rare for women in the population and we have extremely fast brains and are able to make big picture, abstract connections more so than any other personality type.
I have joked for years about being a slightly ADD, left handed, right brained blonde.
Half brilliant, half completely scattered.
Whew! lol