I don’t need to do everything I want
Focus as a multipotentialite
Today I read about the optionality fallacy on Nesslabs.
In this article Anne refers to a tweet which refers to a comic (referception!).
It’s about the fact that you have several lifetimes in your life and that you don’t just live once. That it takes 7 years to master something and therefore — if you live to be 88 years, after age 11, — you have 11 lifetimes in your life.
This has made me think about focus as a multipotentialist.
Some (or maybe most) of you will know the term multipotentialite or even are one. Before I saw the term multipotentialist on Puttylike, I saw the term “scanner” many years ago in a book by Barbara Sher. I immediately felt touched and almost had to cry because of it. That was so totally me. I was happy, finally I was able to live my life with all my interests and it wasn’t strange, I wasn’t crazy, there were more people like me. (Please excuse the drama, I was 18!)
But still, there was something that didn’t quite fit. I read article about article, book about book on how to be a happy multipotentialite but couldn’t get a grip on what bothered me.
The Renaissance Man Trap
Some weeks ago a friend of mine sent me the link to a medium article “How To Avoid The Renaissance Man Trap”. I was furios! And I told her exactly that. Again someone who wanted to tell us multipotentialites to focus on one thing and that it’s not good to be a jack of all trades and juggle many creative pursuits and blablabla. I had not even completely read the article before I ranted but I was triggered immediately. (Sorry John!)
I read the rest of the article — still upset — closed the page and went to a run to vent my anger.
But something changed over the next days and weeks. I was thinking about this article over and over again. Somehow it was true, this lack of focus sometimes stressed me a lot. Jumping from sticks to sticks. Wanting to do something new every day, sometimes even feeling that I “have to”, not finishing much of all the projects. Almost like a compulsion.
Could it be that… John was right?
It hit me hard: I don’t need to do everything I want. I have the choice to NOT do things, even if I WANT to do them. There are no “requirements” to be a multipotentialist. You don’t need to do x things or are interested in an overwhelming lot of things. You don’t have to choose between everything or one.
But there is something in between everything and just one
I have a lot of multipotentialite friends. And most of them struggle. Maybe you are one too and can relate.
For my part I noticed, that I want to do a lot of things and have a lot of interests but but these are almost always in the same categories. I love to create Mandalas on the iPad, I like drawing sketches with pencil in my sketchbook and often work with acryl or oil paint on canvas. But all of this is the category of painting. I love weightlifting, I like bouldering and often go for a run. Category: Sports.
And it’s not that I really want to do everything, there is a lot I don’t wanna do! Even in this categories.
Multipotentialite life maybe is like a circle that gets smaller and smaller and leaves some things outside and takes some things inside.
Or maybe it’s like a rubber that falls to the ground and makes smaller and smaller jumps until it stops. Maybe it’s also like that that we multipotentialites just need a little bit longer until we get to the “right” thing(s) to do.
To get back to the lifetimes in a life: I am now 32. That means I have still (approximately) 8 lifetimes left. And when I think about my past there are about 4–5 topics that I come back to again and again. How about focussing on these? Not “just one thing” but also not “have to do everything”. Maybe not for 7 years in a row (maybe not even 7 years at all) but for some time focussing on far less than everything. It is already very calming to me, to focus on only a few topics but that for a longer period of time.
Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t. Maybe this is not my way to deal with it. But I’ll see. No pressure.
I have a lot of lifetimes left in my life.
Dear (multipotentialite) reader, if you are too struggling with your multipotentiality, maybe you try this approach (and I highly recommend Johns article, thanks John!). Or maybe you’re comfortable with constantly changing among your many interests, good for you! I think there is not only one way but many different ones. As many as there are multipotentialites. I hope you find the right one for you.
