Transcription
Recently, I've been seeing a surge in videos highlighting an issue that many of us have, and they're using the analogy of the fig tree from Sylvia Plath's novel, The Bell Jar. The scene goes like this. The protagonist, Esther Greenwood, imagines her life branching out before her like a fig tree. Each fig represents a future, being a wife, a poet, a professor, traveling the world, living a life of adventure. But as she sits there unable to choose, the figs all start to rot and fall to the ground. All these different lives in front of you and if you don't choose one, they all disappear. And usually the takeaway is you have to choose or else you'll lose everything.
I've been subject to this feeling for as long as I can remember. When I first read this book at 14, it was already very relatable because at that time I had been constantly changing my mind about what I wanted to become. My hobbies and my interests were fleeting. And I was always told by the adults around me, "Don't worry, your passion will come someday." I waited and waited and passions did come. And then they went and I was just forced to make decisions throughout my whole life. And I always felt like this tinge of regret knowing that the further I progressed down one field, the further behind I fell in another. And it just ate me up inside.
Here I am at 30-some and this feeling hasn't really gone away. I still imagine myself in this fig tree. I still see so many options. Yet I still can't decide because not a single one is worth it to me to lose all the rest. Most likely, you watching this video, you're a creative person. You have multiple interests and you're a person who has struggled to commit to a single pursuit. Most likely, you've been made to feel your whole life like you're flaky and non-committal. Well, I'm here to tell you, you're not. You're just a different kind of person, an M-type, multi-passionate. You thrive when you allow yourself freedom to chase different pursuits and have multiple interests, hobbies, and projects. You only feel like something's wrong because today's society tends to value the specialist.
Let's take it back to the fig tree. What I want to tell you in this video is that you don't have to choose. But I'm also not here to tell you that you're going to be multiple mutually exclusive things at the same time. The truth we have to face is this. We don't actually want to be all these things. We just want pieces of each one.
"Hey, listen."
So, let's take a look at my fig tree. Now, this is just a tiny part of my fig tree, but we can see 10 different jobs or careers that I desperately wish I could be. But when I actually consider each one, I realize that I don't need to become a specialist or an expert in each one. As long as I can figure out what it is that attracts me about these jobs, these labels, I can integrate that into my life and experience just as much satisfaction. Because as multi-passionates, M-types, what we need from a certain pursuit isn't always expertise or completion.
Let's look at an example. So I have here a game designer. Now, I love RPG video games. Witcher, Final Fantasy, Ghost of Tsushima, Persona, Baldur's Gate. If there were a pie chart showing what I've spent my life doing, it would be majority losing myself in a video game. But these games make me feel something. The sense of immersion in a fantasy realm, the amazing creativity in the storytelling, the gray area choices that you need to make, it just gives me the inspiration, this feeling that I want to create something similar of my own. But when it comes down to it, hm, do I actually want to learn UI, UX? Do I want to learn about game engines and programming? No. And more than anything, when it does come to world-building and making a story, I don't want to work with a team or with anybody else. I want it to be my own story.
So, what do I actually want from this? Well, I know that I do want to create characters. I want to do world-building. I want to build paths, multiple paths for my players that give them difficult choices, each with its own set of consequences. And the perfect way to do that is Dungeons and Dragons. I'm very lucky that I have a group of friends and we've been playing D&D for a while. Because we're all very busy adults, we take turns DMing and it's just the perfect opportunity for me to design my own campaign. I get to do all the things that I love, world-building, storytelling, character design, gray area decision-making, and then minus all the things that I don't care about.
And so I think this is where a lot of us get stuck. We confuse the lifestyle with the feeling and then we go into panic mode. "If I don't choose this path, I'm going to lose it completely." But that's not true. You can take what you need from something and not commit your entire life to it. So, what I want you to do, just make a list of the jobs that you really want to do or just the paths in life that you've been considering to take and just think deeply what it is about each one that attracts you. Do you think that it's possible to take that little piece and integrate it into your existing life?
And I do think that one very important thing for us to remember, us people with multiple interests and passions, is that every hobby doesn't need to be monetized. Every interested field doesn't need to lead to expertise and you don't need to optimize every single skill and it's okay to be at different levels, whether shallow or deep. You are free to define what success and satisfaction means to you.
Okay. So now when we think of the fig tree, we don't need to see a bunch of lives that we have to choose between. Instead, let's see a bunch of experiences that we can taste. We don't need to just pick one fig, letting the rest of them rot. We can take a bite. We can move on. And we can come back later, too. And we can experiment trying many different things. And yes, I know, I know, we do need a job. We all live in the real world. We all have rent to pay and we all want to eat. But those decisions don't have to define everything about you. Your job doesn't have to hold every version of you.
The book "How to Be Everything" mentions different career paths that multi-potentialites, multi-passionates can go down. Whether it's finding a diverse job that lets you play different roles, a freelancer who works multiple different jobs for some variety, and my personal favorite is the "good enough job." That means having a job that doesn't drain you. It pays enough for you to maintain your lifestyle and gives you the time and the mental energy to pursue other things in your free time. And yeah, this situation could look different for everyone. I know it's an answer that a lot of us don't want to hear. But truly, once you shed yourself of those preconceived notions like choosing one job means losing all the rest and each interest that you go into has to lead to expertise, you can start to live your life according to your M-type nature. And you're going to feel a lot better about the choices you make for your job or your career. I really do believe that being this kind of person, this person with many different interests, your takeaways from each pursuit are going to synthesize and make you that valuable all-rounder generalist. And one day soon, I do hope we get more recognition and appreciation. But in the meantime, as long as you're enjoying yourself and living the life that you were meant to live, that's what's most important.
Thank you guys so much for watching. If you're a returning viewer, sorry that I don't post very often. I'm trying. And yes, I am going to try to diversify my content in the future. I've got very good videos planned. I know I say that a lot. I will be honest. A lot of my ideas fizzle out. That's just the multi-passionate nature, right? But I am going to follow through on some really fun ones. If you're new here, please check out some other videos. And if you want to go ahead and share your stories, tell me what jobs you wish you could be, what paths you wish you could take down in the comments below. Or just let me know any struggles that you've been having. I would just love to hear from you. So yeah, I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye.