Jack of all trades or master of one ?
This question has been plaguing me since 10th standard and there are many who face this same dilemma. The question really comes down to just one thing. Should we just work on one single thing or should we work in all directions to maximise the gains ? I personally have never been able to take the path to be master at something. I always have been the person to take part in multiple things and be average at all of them. I had the chance to study just for entrance examinations and get into the best Indian college possible, but instead of that I took part in creating science projects and participating in zonals. Those who saw me, found me crazy because they felt whatever I was doing would be of no use and actually they were right. But some I liked it, because it made me feel different from the people in my class, I would not say better but different. The ironic part is that, I actually hated taking part in those projects, thinking about different things to make and it actually made me feel quite frustrated. Somehow, I found myself always multitasking, doing a lot of things. I was the house captain, the class topper, zonal science project winner, but none of this was actually important to get into a good college, but somehow it made me believe that it was. As a result, I did not get into the best engineering college, but still made it to a decent one by God’s grace.
I joined college and I thought this might be a time when I do not make the same mistakes, but again yet I did. I took part in societies, did research and also worked on making some money through freelancing. I was somehow able to manage everything but not being good at any one of them. Whenever, I felt i had a lot of time, I filled it with 10 different things rather than taking up just one thing. I have the biggest possible FOMO in this world. If I concentrate on one thing, I find someone else doing something else and I get FOMO about it. And I act on it, I do not leave the thing which I was doing, but rather add one more to it. This approach has always not landed me to a bad place. I even got few opportunities just because of this approach.
I believe all of this can be explained with the help of a concept called “Pivot”. We get most successful at the thing which we Pivot on and in the rest of the areas we perform average. We can either just work on that Pivot or work other things along with the Pivot, but a pivot always exist in everybody’s life. The pivot is actually something which you think about and spend most of your time in a day. During school life, it was my grades, adrenaline rush to do things which everyone claimed were impossible and I somehow did it. I felt the rush when people around me found me astonishing doing something they thought was never possible. For a sports person, this pivot would be the rush he/she gets when they win a match or score a goal. This pivot is different for everyone. This pivot is formed by our environment and our surroundings. We change our pivots from time to time according to the situations that we face in life to stay in the comfort zone. I believe the person who is the master of one thing, is the one who is able to stick to one pivot long enough, whatever the situation maybe or a person who gets such situations in life that he/she never has to change his/her pivot.
I believe picking different options creates different opportunities and being master of just one thing opens up just one opportunity and it is sure that if you get it, you would be best at it. There are successful people of both kinds. People who are master of just one trait can be seen in the sportspersons/actors and the people who know about all the things can be mostly seen as entrepreneurs who work on different ideas and are ready to do anything to make their business work.
But I believe a perfect balance should be stricken between taking part in different things and then coming down to a niche out of it. There might be times in our lives when we would not be sure about what do we actually want to do. At this point, one should find all the possible opportunities and choose the one in which he/she is having maximum “fun”. No “fun” does not always means that it will make you rich and wealthy doing it. But if you really have a passion for something, you will be able to figure out a plan to get better at it and finally take it to the best possible level. Otherwise, the “fun” would be just short-lived and we would just find ourselves back to the same situation in which we started. Also, if we find something which we really want to do but it is not rewarding in short term, we should still pursue it and make it our pivot. we might have to manage other things too to make a living but the pivot should always be fixed. It should be something you think about always.
This is what I have been doing in my past life, trying to find that one thing which I will be able to pivot at and then scale. I hope this article and my story of life helps you gain some perspective of the life you want to live……
