Jack of Many Trades, Master of None or Some
Like many, I’m a big believer of diversity at work-place. There’s so much that people can learn from each other, beyond just content. Cultures, behaviors, empathy, the list is endless. But the positive sentiment around diversity shouldn’t just end there. What about diversity of your own ideas and thoughts? and diversity of careers?
If the last few months (including pre corona) have taught me something, it is that I derive contentment from broadening. This could be a function of many factors — the time I have or make to undertake other activities, my social circle and how that functions, the fact that I don’t currently have kids so fewer personal responsibilities and the unstoppable search for a sense of purpose. Over the course of next few years, some of these factors may change and the time and energy I’m dedicating to these ‘other ventures’ may reduce, but I have realized that broadening is not merely a way to fill time for me, it is much more, and as time passes, I am increasingly becoming an advocate for such a life
When we’re in our 20s, growth is usually synonymous with work-place promotions, or it was for me. I was growing as my job grade was growing, and once I had lived that life for a while, I realized there was so much I didn’t know. What fueled me in multiple directions was this sense of knowing so little, or rather, knowing a lot about just one thing — my job. That is when I realized, I need to broaden.
Broadening can mean so many different things. Some people undertake multiple jobs as a source of multiple income streams or some balance a regular stable job with a startup they may be exploring. Broadening for me is not an income source currently but rather a source of contentment. You could call some of it ‘deliberate hobbies’. By the way, I consider writing this blog as a broadening attempt too, so it doesn’t need to always be super ambitious. Along with the occasional blogging, I spend some time every month working with my graduate school on various alumni initiatives and I have in the past taken courses on edx or coursera that are completely unrelated to my qualification —just to learn more. I’m now considering volunteering with an organization to help them get closer to their goals (Visit taprootfoundation.org if you’re interested in helping non profits through your skills) and trying to learn more about the stock market through small experiments. That said, there are things I picked up and dropped because I wasn’t really enjoying, for instance, I started a food blog and after 2 months deactivated it because I just didn’t feel it anymore
Trying to venture in a few different directions, here’s what I have learnt in the past few months:
- Ideas cross pollinate. Even in entirely different contexts, what I learn in one forum can seamlessly fit another
- Self drive is important, although not always easy
- Goal setting is important but not always necessary (There are things one can do purely to learn rather than perform)
- You can be an individual contributor and a leader at the same time, through different setups
- Multiple initiatives spark creativity, which sparks a more positive attitude
It’s not always easy to sustain a high self drive. Some days, we are all slow and slower than the usual slow in today’s world. I am too. But it helps that I have different avenues to experiment with and learn from. It doesn’t need to be 10 different activities, could be just 2, but something that excites you
