Dear reader,
I want to address today a topic I used to struggle with a lot personally. That post aims to share a more positive view of multi-passionate people. You will learn why you may not be forced to chose among your numerous passions and may be able to combine them all. Let me show you that you do not have to separate your passions and that you can even learn to combine them in order to create something brand new and designed by and for you.
A modern vision of success far different from the definitions History gave of it…
In the previous century, it was still considered “normal” to have several passions and even to be good at several things that are not particularly designed to go together such as music and maths. Currently, we live in an era in which everything is categorized and put into some kind of “box”. That is the reason why being both multi-passionate and taken seriously in 2020 can seem impossible.
Nowadays, success tends to be seen as a dichotomy: whether you find your “niche” and thrive at it, or you try a little of everything and fail altogether. Even though I do believe one should not get involved into too many activities for the sake of it, I do not abide by the rule “a Jack of all trades is a master of none”, is that what you say in English?
… and that starts in our childhood…
The modern vision we have of success as something that has to do with finding one’s “niche” starts early in life. For instance, a child is asked to learn one sport, not often two, and rarely three. Then, he is known to be “math-oriented” or “literature-oriented” at school and follows the scholar path that goes with his preferences. However, a child can be good at both maths and English, and he can play tennis, football and love ballet. It is simply hard, in a system based on creating categories, to thrive in several realms at the same time.
… to finally make us feel “abnormal”. We are not.
Thus, when a child is good in several realms that seem not to go well together, he eventually has to chose. I do not know if you can do it in your country, but in France, people rarely go for a double-BA in mathematics and Irish literature. I think that is such a shame.
Actually, people who have multiple interests should be able to practice them all as the multiplicity of their passions is what makes them unique and thus, interesting. When someone is able to combine too things that seem totally different such as a passion for foreign languages and physics, that person is enabled to do something unique that has never been done before. That is when genius people appear to be so as they open a totally new path before them. Here is the reason why I believe having several passions may not be a thing to hide but a quality to cultivate.
The English-speaking Frenchie 