You Don’t Have to Do Just One Thing

There are a lot of people who would insist, via their reaction, that you should do one thing.

• You should be a lawyer, a doctor, or an accountant.
• You certainly should not be a multi-hyphenate, multi-passionate individual.

The market often demands that the mosaic of you be sharpened into a single pixel, so that you can be neatly organized and contained within one box.

But what about those of us for whom that is a near impossibility?

What about those who immediately recoil from the craft they once loved when it ceases to be an outlet and instead becomes a prison?

I am that person.

I have many interests and I cannot convince myself of the logic that I should not. Nor can I convince myself that it is worthwhile to limit my contributions to others by making myself smaller or hiding some of my gifts behind a single title or offer.

What I have chosen instead, is to simply work harder on organization and communication.

It’s not actually about choosing one thing. It’s about being deliberate in how you communicate.

• The problem isn’t how many interests I have but whether the connections between them are coherent.
• The problem isn’t that I have many things to offer, it’s whether I present it in a targeted and relevant drip or a powerful and overwhelming firehose blast.

For me, I need to understand the logic of how all of my endeavors connect. I only add something if it is congruent with the rest of the ecosystem and adds value.

For those I seek to work with, all that matters is showing them what is relevant to the conversation.

“You’re too much. You’re not enough.”

When we try to be all that we believe we’re capable of, we will inevitably hear a chorus of people telling us that we cannot. That we are too much and must tone it down. That we should not be all of those things. We cannot have all of those interests. We must be what they believe we should be.

Alternatively, they may see our ambition an scoff at our audacity. They will assure us, there is no way we can be good at all of those things. There is no way we can be enough to step into the pictures we paint.

For all of those who have heard that they are too much, or that they are not enough, please do not shape what you do and how you see yourself based on the opinions of others.

Consider that maybe you are the sole authority on you. Consider that you are the one who will live with the choices you make. And consider how much more vibrant life would be if you did that instead of living with the choices and constraints that were forced onto you by someone else.