Get a hobby or a career?
I’m constantly in awe of people who can channel large amounts of energy into a single pursuit or field of achievement. Those who reach success are adept at this, for example artists, those in business or science. Coupled with social and economic pressures, one can only wonder at how they might squeeze in a few hours to dedicate to a hobby or parallel personal goal.
A fulltime artist may consider pure maths to be a worthwhile addition to his or her barrel of skills, or the accountant, who feels that there is nothing more pleasurable than covering their body in acrylic paint and rolling around naked on pink plastic. Everyone has dreams, hobbies and playthings that are sometimes toyed with and later left on the shelf to ferment, or that do indeed take up a portion of their lives, complementary to whatever dedication commands the majority of their attention.
The sad fact is however, that often only after having dedicated scores of years to their particular area, or having accumulated the financial means to create more free time, these people attempt to reclaim lost interests or pick up new ones, never reaching the level of skill that they might have if they had distributed their time more laterally. I’m not sure that I can do this.
Like many people, I prefer a life filled with a diversity of learning. This is not unique, in fact, I guess it covers most of us. However, my problem is that I cannot seem to devote enough time to any single discipline and prefer to periodically jump from one to the next, or whatever new trinket captures my imagination. The disadvantage of this lifestyle is that, while you subsist in remaining mildly interested in the routine of daily life, and develop a broad ability and interest base, it takes considerably more time to gain a deep understanding or mastery of specifics.
Take for example, music. I have been playing music for more than 12 years now and consider myself a proficient guitarist across a range of styles. I have played in bands and at times, practised 2-3 hours a day for consecutive months.
Enter languages. I love learning about languages. I wouldn’t say that I’m a master of any, but I do speak and understand most of the latin-based variety. When I feel that I need to brush up on some lingo (usually caused by an embarrassing encounter trying to assist a French tourist), I’ll slice a chunk of time from my schedule, open a book, take a course or holiday and, well, el resto es historia.
Next in line is my job as a web nerd. I like my job and love to create new things. Therefore I periodically spend a truckload of caffeine-enhanced hours learning, experimenting and simply screwing around with things that will:
- keep me abreast of new methods and standards
- help me do my job more efficiently and creatively
- allow me to get a better job later
- make my work more interesting
Throw sports, photography, freelance work, travelling, family, scrabble, chess, crosswords, design, writing, friends, drinking and everything else I try to keep at a certain level and, for me at least, it’s a tough ask to maintain. At times I feel that everything I do is just a hobby and I’ll never find that one true calling (unless you count going to the pub).
Yet, many talented people, and I know a few of them, seem to be able to manage it with little effort while, at the same time, enjoying a successful career and raising a family. Perhaps it’s a time management issue - a personality trait I seem to lack - but I transfer a gigantic jamcake of respect to them. You know you are.