I've always tried to be a Jill of all trades. I figured that I would be the most useful by knowing many skills. I'm pretty sure my fixation with being 'of use' stems from my reading The Cider House Rules by John Irving when I was in high school.
Homer, the title character is always trying to be 'of use' and uses that as much of his driving force in the novel. The major difference between Homer and I is that he was an expert at a few things, and I'm not an expert at anything. (I am great at trivia so I know I'm super smart. lol)
I have a lot of skills, but I always seem to get just far enough so that I can muddle through projects. I never dive deeper. Perhaps it's my fear of failure that stops me, but I feel like it's getting in the way with being the most productive person I can be.
The biggest problem is that I just don't know what exactly I want to spend copious amounts of time doing. Do I want to become a better piano player? Absolutely, yes! But I have to work for it. I'd have to play my scales... I'd have to work rather than just have fun playing my pop tunes.
Do I want to become better at knitting and crochet? You betcha! But I need to get size 8 needles and don't have a coupon.
I'm just too good at making excuses for why I can't do something rather than just doing it.
Is it a lack of passion or motivation?
I've been so bored lately, but I know it's because I'm just not keeping myself busy enough. There are lots of things I could do but I don't want to. I don't even know what I want to do!
Will I ever?
All I know is that I have the love of a good man, a comfy home, good food, and really couldn't ask for anything else. That's enough for me for the moment. Sooner or later I'll find my calling... whatever it may be.
I can understand where you're coming from. One thing that has helped me get past similar situations is make list of all the things you want to do, figure out how much free time you have to do all these things, then do each of them for just a little while.
ReplyDeleteIn my example, I wanted to knit, read, catch up on some anime, laundry, and garden. Say I had 3 1/2 hours of free time that day- I would take turn doing each of these things for 20 minutes, then move on to the next.
Sure, it's totally crazy, but I got to do everything I wanted to do (maybe not for as long as I wanted), but at the end of the day I felt pretty accomplished. I did this for a good chunk of a summer a few years ago.
After doing this for a while, it helped me feel better about all the things I had accomplished. Then I started devoting more time to what I found I wanted to do the most.
It helped me, maybe something unorthodox like that might help you too.