Tuesday, February 17, 2015

42 Doing many things at a time

There are times when one feels like ‘taking up’ or doing a number of major things all at the same time. Opportunities to be a ‘polyglot’ or a ‘polymath’ of this sort may have been limited in the past, when you took up a certain profession and stuck to it, but today with the enormous resources available at our fingertips, thanks to the Internet, opportunities abound. In fact, anybody surfing the web and coming across blogs like this is pretty sure to be a questing type themselves! 
In my experience, however, it becomes difficult to do take up more than one (or maybe two!) things seriously at a time, so some thought has to be given to the best practical way of applying yourself to a number of pursuits. I will share my own experience with this, and also refer to two books which I found especially insightful, The Renaissance Soul by Margaret Lobenstine and another book with a longer title by Barbara Sher (see reference list at the end of the post).
Firstly, why would this be a problem at all? I can think of at least two major reasons. One is that we have to be able to earn a living (unless we have inherited ample wealth, which then has its own problems!), so there has to be a primary skill or competence that is the basis of our productive life. In practical terms, this means that we will have to concentrate on a narrow range of activities for the sake of the profession. This automatically limits the depth and intensity of our engagement with all other pursuits, making them secondary to the central profession.
A second consideration could be the limitation of resources: of time, energy, mental stamina, and of course money, plus our own individual capacities and capabilities. Of course there are inspirational stories of individuals who have overcome fearsome odds to excel, but then chances are that they would have made one thing their major goal. We are talking of a different attitude to life here, where no single activity or pursuit is considered overwhelmingly important, and a number of them appear equally interesting and feasible. How do we manage this in a single lifetime without an endowment of any limitless resources?
My own strategy has been to use the natural ebb and flow of activities in any career to accommodate diverse interests. The career one chooses (or falls into!) itself is often a matter of chance or the effect of pre-disposing factors (what one’s friends are looking at, the family or  clan traditions, the coming together of a certain opening with our situation at a certain point, and so on). Having taken up a career, however, one may find that it doesn’t advance in a straight upward line, but instead may circle around considerably in an apparently unproductive manner. Of course you have to give all of your energy and focus to the main job, especially in the initial period, but there will be times when things aren’t progressing that smoothly, when for one reason or other you find yourself in a sideline or backwater where nothing much seems to be happening, or you have to wait a couple of years for an opening, and so on. These are the periods in your life to develop the lateral interests that had to be set aside in your busy years.
This strategy is the ‘front burner-back burner’ strategy I have referred to previously. It has been helpful in dealing with certain difficult patches in my main career, and now especially after retiring (which could become a continuous bad patch without these additional interests and pursuits!). Indeed the concept of ebb and flow is relevant even for those intensely and passionately committed to a single dominant thing in their lives (the cause of conservation, or child or animal welfare, or helping the less fortunate, for example), as they need at least one alternative activity to manage stress levels and tide over bald patches. However, this doesn’t mean that one endlessly takes up new activities at random, because that would only result in a frittering away of one’s time and opportunities without achieving anything, a path to frustration and cynicism. So one has to have a limited set of parallel interest, say a half dozen of them, which are pursued over a lifetime, some more seriously. You have to choose the level of proficiency aimed at in each pursuit, of course, depending on your basic interests and the progress you are able to make. Some activities which you may have taken up when young (mountain climbing, for instance) may have to set aside as age takes its toll. That’s the advantage of having a tidy ‘portfolio’ of five or six different interests over a lifetime.
One caveat which I would like to lay out here is that these interests need not become a source of self-castigation if you don’t make good in them. You don’t really owe anybody anything for the time and resources you have invested in these pursuits (provided they are within reasonable limits, and not at the cost of your family and career obligations!), and every person is allowed a certain amount of goofing off. It’s like paying the proverbial tithe, except that this is to yourself and the nurturing of your inner spirit. Hopefully it makes you a kindlier, less frustrated person!
I have found, however, that even with these caveats, it is rarely feasible to develop more than a couple of activities or hobbies at a time. If you are doing some research for writing on a particular topic or theme, for instance, that itself becomes a major pursuit (apart from your job). If you want to bring it to some fruition, this would have to be given priority over a sufficient period of time. Other pursuits and interests would have to go to the back burner, or be bundled into storage boxes until their turn came up! Doing a Ph.D. or an academic course comes into mind as quite a challenging pursuit, for instance. The key here is that this has to be made the primary second string activity (besides your day job), and some adjustments may have to be made in your other diversions like TV-watching, hotel-hopping… and internet surfing! But it is entirely worth the effort.
I’ll review the suggestions in the books cited in the next post… and also say something about my experience with doing a Ph.D. in case someone is in that bind!

Books cited


 Lobenstine, Margaret. 2006. The Renaissance Soul. Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One. Broadway Books, New York.

Sher, Barbara. 2006. What Do I Do When I Want To Do Everything? A Leading Life Coach’s Guide to Creating a Life You’ll Love. Rodale International Ltd., London.

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