It's fantastic to have many irons in the fire. It's exciting to have many pursuits and interests. Education, discovery and experience are, in my book at any rate, the holy trinity of living and enjoying your life.
I was thinking this morning about how difficult it is to actually do everything I want to do in the time I have available. I mean, it's a real 21st Century problem is it not? After all, time is our most valuable and scarcest resource. We have 1440 minutes in a single day and when each minute ticks by, it's gone, there is no getting it back. There are approximately 730 hours in one month. It seems a lot but when you carve out time for sleep, work, eating, socialising, running the house, exercising, and having a bit of downtime with your significant other, well...that doesn't leave quite so much time for your projects and interests does it?
I so want to be good, no I mean great, at everything I do. To be so requires some effort, concentration, practice, motivation and of course...time, that one thing we all struggle for. How can I be "great" at something if I do not have the time? How can I fit things in?
Multi-interests? I'm trying to shoe-horn in improving my photography (on-line lessons in photography skills, reading photography books, watching photography-themed videos, taking photographs, editing photographs, teaching myself about my cameras, editing software, equipment, etc). I'm learning French, now that is a slow one, it's a hard language and not as easy as you think when your wife is a French teacher who won't teach you! Creating videos for our Mu n Mel en France YouTube channel, for a historical project and for another channel I am developing, which in turn entails learning film-making skills, teaching myself video-editing skills, learning about the use of colour (in films and photography) and telling a story.
What else? Well there is also my blogging, playing golf, playing chess, tarot and kipper (small but entertaining interests), studying the arts of film and paintings and also the architecture and art of death (a fascinating hobby which I will blog more on at a later stage).
So how am I going to tackle all of that!
Well, firstly I have adjusted my expectation with time. I have tried to schedule actual timeslots in my day (like the productivity gurus tell you to) but it doesn't work for me. I find it too rigid. Thus I have made a pact with myself that I will be "good enough" by dabbling in each of my interests with no fixed time allotted to them but doing them because i enjoy them and want to learn and get creative. These are hobbies and passions for myself...I'm not out to make a a few quid and earn a living on sponsor money like some of the YouTubers out there. So I'm running with dabbling, because it makes me happy and I don't feel time pressured which makes me lose interest and feel just unproductive and lacking fulfilment.
So, it's a Sunday as I write this, I had a long walk with my wife and dog this morning (exercise) and took a few shots with one of my cameras while we were out (that way I dabbled with my photography). I went to see a friend about a historical photographic project we are working on (more dabbling) and met a French chap who is helping with the printing. We all then decided to go the 1950s bar that only opens twice a year and today was one of them, where we were spontaneously joined by my wife, the French chaps' mother and two British friends who were in town (a tick for socialising). This afternoon I decided to blog (dabbling again) and will then do some editing of some of my photographs (dabbling encore) and then perhaps a bit of French (dabble dabble dabble) and some reading (yup..dabble) before we head out to the English cinema (dabbling some more) and meet up with some other friends (another tick on the social front).
Time is life.
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