Don’t Throw (a part of) Yourself Away

On Having More Than One Passion in Life

If you are someone who finds it hard to focus on only one thing in life, there is a chance you are the type of youth who have more than one passion or interest.

Let’s say, you’re a business student with passion for writing and movie (it’s me!) or you are a graphic designer with passion for typography (that’s my friend, Philip Young).

Whatever your passions might be, have you ever–at some point in your life–decided to focus on one thing and one passion only because you think that “having too many interests will distract your focus and take you nowhere?”

That’s exactly what happened to me last summer. I was at a point in my life when I asked myself, “How can I be successful if I never put my whole efforts to one thing?”

I then told myself, “Okay. No more writing. I should just study business from now on.”

But what happened after that? I felt like I lost a part of myself. A week after that, I went back to my routine, which is writing. It turned out that I couldn’t just let go the thing that has been a part me of for the last 20 years.

On the other hand, I also can’t let go my interest in business. For God’s sake, I study in a business school. I live day by day with business lectures, textbooks, and exams. How can I just I throw it all away?

I can’t seem to find the answer until I read Austin Kleon’s “Steal Like an Artist”.

Thank you, Austin Kleon

I borrowed the book from a friend and hadn’t had the chance to read it until last week. I stumbled upon one page that inspires this post and–basically–changes my whole perspective.

If you have two or three real passions, don’t feel like you have to pick and choose between them. Don’t discard. Keep all your passions in life…

“Steal Like an Artist” is basically a book consisting of 10 Things No One Told You About Being Creative. One of the 10 points that Kleon suggested was that side projects and hobbies are important, and a tips titled “Don’t Throw (any of) Yourself Away is a part of this suggestion.

These past few years I have been spending too much time worrying about the irrelevance of all my passions and interests. That is why I tried to pick one and focus on it. But eventually it seems like Kleon read my mind (or anybody’s mind who have the same problem) and knows what was happening to me.

The thing is, you can cut off a couple passions and only focus on one, but after a while, you’ll start to feel phantom limb pain.

This phantom limb pain he mentioned was exactly how I felt. It was like losing a part of your body. I didn’t feel whole. Fortunately, a week after, I quit my decision to focus and now I am my whole self again. Reading Kleon’s book further justified my action.

Don’t throw any of yourself away. Don’t worry about a grand scheme or unified vision for your work. Don’t worry about unity–what unifies your work is the fact that you made it. One day, you’ll look back and it will all make sense.

I repeat, what unifies your work is the fact that you made it. So stop figuring out the relevance between everything you do. Just do it and wait for that one day when it all makes sense.