In the rare instances I find myself with a few minutes of free time, I run into a dilemma. I struggle to determine how I should spend my free time. Life presents so many opportunities to perfect a skill or experiment with a new hobby that it can be difficult to decide where to begin. There’s the piano piece I’ve been trying to perfect and the sketchbook I have been trying to fill. Then I think “maybe I should rescue my skateboard from the closet so it has a chance to see the light of day.” My ukulele has been gathering dust. I haven’t touched it in months. This year’s club fair also featured a lot of interesting clubs to join. Then there are all the friends to hang out with and new people to meet. If it was not obvious already, I have many things I want to learn.
Naturally, this has made it difficult to narrow down possible career options. People provide vastly different strategies for choosing a career. However, the theme that most people suggest is either find work in something you are passionate about or at least that aligns with your interests. The question that I struggle with upon receiving such advice is “which one?”
Conversing with fellow students, I have found that I am not the only one in a quandary about how to move forward. This tendency to feel pulled between multiple interests and passions has been something I have struggled with for most of my life and has led me at many different points in my life to feel somehow like I am somehow “wrong” as a human being. Watching other people easily choose two or three hobbies made me question why I have never been able to do the same. However, I recently came to a couple of realizations that have shifted my perspective on how I think about this personality quirk.
First of all, what if having a variety of interests is not a bad thing after all? There are benefits attached to having knowledge in multiple areas. In the past, there have been periods when it was highly respected to be well-versed in multiple fields. Remember the ideal of the Renaissance Man that was pursued by many individuals alive during the Renaissance period. Although I do not agree with the notion that man is the center of the universe, there are some ideas that stem from this ideal that should be considered. There has even been a more modern version of this that has emerged with the coining of the term “multipotentialite.” The same Ted Talk that coined the term multipotentialite lists some benefits to those who have many passions. They are able to produce innovative ideas as they combine information from their various interests. They also tend to be rapid learners and they are adaptable. All of these are valuable character traits. The concept of a multipotentialite contrasts with the typical advice people often give to choose one niche to focus on. Specialization is important and society does need people with extensive expertise in one area, but I’d like to present to you the idea that perhaps society needs both.
Secondly, I’d like to suggest that it is not a flaw to feel this way and is perhaps even natural. As a Christian community, we believe God made us to live forever. John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16 NKJV). When Jesus died on the cross, He did so to restore us to the life we were intended to live. We were designed to live forever. God has also created us with an incredible capacity to learn. Thus, human beings were made to learn new things continuously for all eternity. Although sin has caused mankind to degrade farther and farther from the life we were intended to live, there are still desires and yearnings placed by God in the human heart that remain despite the fall. Theoretically, if people had the ability to learn for an infinite amount of time, they would be able to master a number of different skills. Thus, perhaps the desire to be well-versed in many areas is a natural thing for humans to experience. However, since we know that on this earth time is finite, it adds pressure to try and master as many things as possible within the limited time available. Realistically, I know there will never be enough time on this earth to pursue every dream out there, and I have to choose to do what I can in the time provided to me. How comforting it is to know that someday the time constraints will be removed and we will have forever, literally, to contemplate what life skills to develop next.
Maybe I will never be a master at anything, but that is okay. I choose to believe there is a purpose behind having varied interests. Perhaps God is preparing me for something in the future that I will need all these skills for. Until then, I will continue to read the hundreds of books on my to-read list, learn a new language, and perhaps finally polish off that one piano piece.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.