So many things, so little time
How does one get better at doing something, you might wonder? Can one get better at multiple things in one lifetime? Or is that a foolish endeavor and one should just focus on improving themselves in just one domain in a lifetime? These are some basic questions pertaining to life, and while the questions themselves seem simple, answering them isn’t simple at all.
An obvious reason for the answers not being easy to find is that each of our lives are different and hence most probably our aspirations are different. Some people want to excel at coding, others want to become great writers, still others want to become sterling cooks, and similarly, there are myriad other things in which one can excel. Practice makes perfect. One can do something over and over again. When they start out, they will most probably suck at something. But if they keep at it, they’d eventually excel at it. I read somewhere that more than talent, what one needs is persistence and hard work.
I have always had a penchant for increasing my knowledge in different domains — be it art, history, science, politics or anything for that matter. Knowing one thing leads to another and before I know it, I am knee-deep in research about something that I didn’t even know existed before I began the research. I have often wondered if wanted to know and learn a lot about everything is much like addiction — the more you do it, the further you want to immerse yourself into it. If I work in supply chain, why do I want to know about the intricacies of American politics or Machine Learning or French cuisine or any other similar unrelated topic? If I know it would lead me nowhere eventually, why am I so inclined to learn it nevertheless? I say all this not out of arrogance, but I sincerely want to seek answers, and I hope to do so through writing.
One reason I can think of that is that I want to discuss more of what I learn with others. By doing so, not only does the existing knowledge increase manifold, but also it makes every one strive to be a better person. The fact that I feel happy after helping others ties into this latter aspect. Okay, knowledge increase and helping others: two reasons I can make sense of. But I think there’s something deeper at play as well. The more I try to learn new things, the more I realize that there’s so much I don’t know, will never know, can never know. With every new thing that I learn, that realization only entrenches itself firmly inside me. It has now become a close friend — one that serves both as a source of humility and as a source of constant doubt. It has become a conundrum that I don’t want to solve. The beauty I think lies in its always being elusive.
To conclude, it’s not a foolish endeavor at all to learn a lot of different things. Our lives are too short to be focused on pursuing just one vocation. When we begin to accept that we do not know, we begin more accepting of things, we embrace more, and we become less afraid of the unknown. Our ideas about things might not end up changing the world, but they’d force others to start thinking about things they were always told might not be possible. Change then would be forthcoming, and for the better.
