We Deserve to Be More Than One Thing

I am an Artist. I am a Baker. I am a Surfer. I am a Runner. I am a Lawyer. I am a Programmer. I am a Nurse.

Throughout my life, I have been many things, even some of those things I named. I’ve even been some of them at the same time. Well, okay, I’ve never filed a motion while paddling into the waves off Point Dume, for example. Having never actually been a lawyer, I’m not entirely sure it’s even possible. But I have paddled some waves, so I’ve called myself a surfer. When I was creating animation, I thought of myself as an animator. That one time I made bread? I was a baker. Albeit a baker who desperately needed rescuing, but in that moment I still associated myself with the nomenclature.

I am an Artist. I am a Baker. I am a Surfer. I am a Runner. I am a Lawyer. I am a Programmer. I am a Nurse.

At one time or another, you have called yourself something. A student. A teacher. A Mom. A Second-Tier Totalist (in which case please contact me immediately and explain what the hell that is; it sounds fascinating). You picked a thing and went with it, even if only for a brief conversation.

“What do you do?” is probably the worst conversation opener in human history. We have all these words to say what we’re occupied with at any given moment, and the rest of the world wants us to pick one thing and stick with it.

As a multipotentialite, how do you even begin to answer that question? If you’re anything like me, it usually goes something like, “Uh, I uh, I… do… I make… well, I…” and resignedly follow it up with whatever income-producing job in which you happen to be employed at the moment.

“What do you do?” is probably the worst conversation opener in human history.

It’s human nature to want to categorize people. According to J. Krueger in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, “Categorization simplifies perception and cognition related to the social world by detecting inherent similarity relationships or by imposing structure on it (or both). ” In other words, asking what occupies us all day is the easiest way for some people to understand who we are, or at least think they understand. What about when the thing that occupies your time is in fact not one thing, but a bunch of things? Then, the categorization process gets messy. That makes people uncomfortable.

Even as children, adults wanted us to tell them What We Want To Be When We Grow Up. I always struggled with this question. Maybe an artist? I like to draw, I reasoned with myself, it makes perfect sense. For decades, I was going to be an artist because that’s what I told everyone, and my one non-wavering answer seemed to make everyone happy. Even if they thought I would starve to death in a van down by the river, it was okay because I had chosen a thing.

Spoiler Alert: I became an artist. I did not starve to death and I’ve never even owned a van (yet). I figured out how to make my way as an artist, albeit in many different forms. As a bonus, my chosen conversation-starter answer was solid. I could safely board airplanes knowing that I had a response that wouldn’t make someone want to change seats.

The trouble with this scenario is that, while it made other people happy, I was still confused. I struggled with the question of The One Thing. Everyone else seemed to know who I was; why couldn’t I figure it out? Sure, I liked being an artist. Good work if you can get it. But there were so many other things that I felt strongly called to do that weren’t being an artist.

Even as children, adults wanted us to tell them What We Want To Be When We Grow Up. I always struggled with this question.

For example, I’ve always been a big computer nerd. I love programming, I love messing with hardware, and I especially love making old computers keep going long after they’ve been designated landfill-fodder. While I fed my hobby in shiny bits (bytes?) and pieces over the years, I always felt that I wanted to do more in that field. Exploring it seriously seemed like a fool’s errand. After all, I was an artist. I had spent two decades building a career on that path, who was I to even think about another major interest? Even if my pursuit of computer science was only meant to be a very large research project and not an income-producing venture, I felt I couldn’t justify spending the time on it. It felt like a guilty pleasure.

And boom, there it was. The G-word. Guilty. Guilt and its first cousin shame loomed over me, preventing me from doing more than fantasizing about seriously learning to code. I was also afraid of being seen as a dilettante, a hack, a poser, someone who didn’t “have it together.”

Over time, the guilt made me mad. I was mad at myself for not starting sooner. I was also mad at the cultural trope that says we need to list one thing on a small business card so the world can know who we are without spending too much energy on the problem. I realized that the problem doesn’t lie with those people who are called to explore the world by taking a few off ramps now and then. The problem is with those who want to keep us on the smooth, safe highway, speeding along in one direction until we get to our ultimate destination. That destination, if you’ve been following along so far, is the end of a life full of regret and longing.

The problem does not lie with those people who are called to explore the world by taking a few off ramps now and then.

It’s really up to us to change society. We must choose to explore our interests, our whims, our flights of fancy – and, yes, our serious pursuits – off the track of our “main road.” Living lives full of varied experiences will do more than make us happier. It will pave the way for kids to grow up marveling at all the amazing things they have the potential to do. When they grow up and someone asks them, “What do you do?” they’ll unwaveringly say, “I’m a baker and a lawyer and I love to mess with computers and I really, really like insects of all kinds. Aren’t they fascinating?” And if we do it right, the person buckled in next to them won’t even want to change seats.

Your Turn

So, what do you do? Just kidding! How do you introduce yourself to new people? Do you lead with your multipotentiality, or try to give them a simple answer?