Thursday, November 17, 2016

True Confessions of a Jack of all Trades

I will never be Michelangelo. Or Tolkien. Or Picasso.

It's no secret how much I love to pursue new interests. I'm always looking for something shiny and new to wake up my mind. It's what I love. It's what makes me tick. It makes me happy to be alive.

Unfortunately it also has drawbacks. Each interest stops being new at some point and begins to be old and tiresome.  It becomes work and my ADHD mind no longer classifies it as as a priority. Thus I always tend to cycle out of an interest at some point and start looking for the next shiny thing.

I've been doing this for as long as I can remember. I have a list of skills as long as my arm. People tell me that they're amazed at the number of different things I know how to do. I don't say this to brag. I'm quite competent at many things, but I will never be Michelangelo.

Here is some painful honesty. I cycled out of writing a year and a half ago.

The more I denied this fact and the harder I clung to it the more miserable I became.  Miserable, depressed, and frustrated with myself for not being stronger. For not having the passion I see in others who have found their calling and have laid their souls on the alter. I'm am in awe of you, and a little jealous. While you are becoming Tolkien I will still be chasing after the next shiny thing and becoming merely competent.

There is good news in all this. I always tend to cycle back to my greatest passions. Sometimes it takes months, sometimes years or even decades, but I always come back. Perhaps over the course of several cycles I will grow past competence and become good or even great. I don't know yet.

And just for the record, this doesn't mean I'm swearing off writing completely and shunning friends and the community I grown to love. It just means I'm giving myself a break. I am, as of this moment, giving myself permission to be passionate about something else and stop trying to force myself into a box that doesn't fit right now.

I may never be Michelangelo, but I am Christauna, and today that is enough.

2 comments:

  1. I think one disservice we do ourselves--as insidious as the idea we'll never be good enough to be professional writers--is the idea that we can never give up, either. Says who? Where does it say we have to keep forcing ourselves to do something if it no longer brings us joy (other than some of the adult obligations like feeding kids, paying bills, etc, of course!)?

    My daughter is much the same way. She's continually getting excited about something new, does it amazingly well for a while, then drops it like a rock just as quickly. But there are a few specific talents she keeps coming back to in between.

    And I definitely hear you. I've been focused on writing for five years straight now, but lately it's become a chore. If my latest project doesn't rejuvenate my interest I'm probably going to set writing aside and see if the passion returns at some later date. Maybe there's something else I need to do right now?

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  2. I think your talent is having many talents and being able to cycle through what you do love and build on them. It keeps your innate talents ever growing--- just not in the conventional linear way. More important--- you have inward talents that are so much more important than the outward ones--- being honest with yourself and willing to share your struggles that make everyone relieved because we all have some of those struggles too but are too proud to reveal them. I love your talent of being willing to try NEW things and not get in a rut. I especially love your talent to being true to your family and loving them- your immediate family and your extended family, your neighborhood family and your Heavenly Family most of all. Thanks for being you!!

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