When I was a little girl, I wanted to go to "Universary" and become a teacher. When I got older and discovered I could write as a career and not just as a hobby, that's exactly what I was gonna do.
There have been a lot of hiccups. In my late teens I became severely depressed and it completely stunted me. I went inward and left life behind. It immobilized me mentally and emotionally, and consequently socially and psychologically.
When I started to really pick up the pieces in my early twenties, I had to leave a promising job due to unexplainable physical and mental problems. I was diagnosed by doctors and deemed unable to work.
When one spends several years in stagnation, trying skill-lessly to get better, apart from 'normal' life and 'normal' schedules, it becomes increasingly harder to get your head above water, and keep it there. Life slowly but surely becomes purposeless, unnecessarily hard, and farther and farther out of reach.
It feels like I've been fighting forever and for the better part of those years, not getting very far. I've learned a few lifetimes worth of lessons and gained a lot of skills and wisdom. I just kept chipping away at the big boulder and after a long time, began to see it take some form. For the longest time it just seemed like it wasn't ever going to budge.
But for the past few years, I've been able to see the difference of then and now - how far I've come.
When I was younger I was extremely ambitious and I had goals and dreams, plans for the future. After years of living the kind of life I was living, I slowly stopped dreaming. I didn't even notice it for a while but one day I realized I had no idea what I wanted my life to look like anymore, just that I didn't want it to look like it did.
I still had my many interests and passions, but no direction and no real idea of how to go about getting it. It made me so sad to think I had no goals other than the same few goals I'd had for all these years: basic goals for my health since my health problems had weighed me down so much. You could go through my journals throughout the years and see the same exact themes, year in and year out, struggling with myself against the same obstacles and never seeming to get anywhere. It was really sad.
The good news is that I am mentally out of that place - I am now able to conceive of and institute plans, goals, and purpose in my life and for a while now I've been on a journey of self-discovery to figure out what that means for me.
Most recently in my journey, I came across an apparent stumbling block - the same damn block that has been there my whole adult life when it came down to deciding on a purpose/career: I don't know what I'm meant to do because I'm passionate about many things!
If my only true passion were writing, that would be easy. But that isn't the case. And I struggle with trying to figure out what path to follow. What if I choose the wrong thing and waste too much time before I figure that out? And I know I wouldn't be satisfied with any one thing (yes, I'm difficult). I've been all over the place as far as my pursuits in life go and though I need a direction, I don't wish to ignore my passions as purposes in exchange for just one.
Obviously I've thought of choosing one and doing the other things as side projects. But that hasn't seemed to fit either: the reason I'm so passionate about the things I'm passionate about is because they are all vehicles to the same end, and that end is my purpose.
I've always believed anything is possible and so I haven't given up on figuring this out. I need to figure this out. And then last night I learned a few new words:
Multipotentialism
A term defined in 1972 by R.H. Frederickson for people who, “when provided with appropriate environments, can select and develop a number of competencies to a high level.”
(from puttylike.com)
A multipotentialite is a person who has many different interests and creative pursuits in life.
Multipotentialites have no “one true calling” the way specialists do. Being a multipotentialite is our destiny. We have many paths and we pursue all of them, either sequentially or simultaneously (or both).
Multipotentialites thrive on learning, exploring, and mastering new skills. We are excellent at bringing disparate ideas together in creative ways. This makes us incredible innovators and problem solvers.
When it comes to new interests that emerge, our insatiable curiosity leads us to absorb everything we can get our hands on. As a result, we pick up new skills fast and tend to be a wealth of information.
Polymath/Renaissance Person.
A polymath (Greek: πολυμαθής, polymathēs, "having learned much") is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath (or polymathic person) may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable. Most ancient scientists were polymaths by today's standards.
So I'm not alone. *phew* So now what?
Well now I feel less stressed out about it, for one thing. This is not a bad thing! I've never been comfortable in any box and I don't see how I could ever be happy trying. And why bother if that's not what I'm meant to do?
So what I need to do is figure out how to take my passions and turn them into a career - into something fulfilling, something that aides people in some way, and something that allows me to be financially independent. This is now the journey I'm on. I now feel I have permission not to be pigeonholed into one specific expertise. I just need to figure out what it will look like.
I had an awesome brainstorming session with Brian today - we listed the main things I'm passionate about doing. One thing is for certain, there is a very strong theme that runs throughout all of those things and that is healing... in all aspects. Health and well-being is what I want both for myself and for others. This seems to be the epitome of what I need to offer the world in whatever ways I can.
Brian and I came up with a pretty good idea that I am definitely going to develop though I can't be positive yet if that is the exact direction I'm going. It is very promising though. One sure way I can tell it is right is that it immediately brought up a lot of fears as well as a feeling of a huge weight lifting off my shoulders. We shall see.
But there are some things I have to do before I can get where I want to be - getting over my social anxiety is the most important one and the balls are already rolling on that. That's a huge one. Huge fears and huge discomfort. That will be an interesting journey. But I'm eager to get on with it so I can start doing more with my life.
My next step, aside from the above and doing more research on my possibilities, is formulating plans for my various goals - something I've learned is essential to do if you want to accomplish ANYTHING lol.
I have a lot of work ahead of me - I couldn't be more excited or terrified!
<3 M
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