What Your Doldrums May Actually Be Telling You

Have you ever entered the doldrums? Not the literal doldrums—the tedious places at sea where winds are few and sailors struggled to escape. I mean those times in life when nothing at all feels interesting.  During these times, I listlessly ignore that stack of books waiting to be read. I scroll aimlessly through Netflix, YouTube, […]

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Don’t let anyone shame you for having a day job.

From my early- to mid-twenties I was a full-time technical writer who had big dreams of becoming a full-time freelance or creative writer someday. And I looked at my technical job as an asset, not a roadblock, to that dream. My plan was to freelance in my spare time, then save enough money until I […]

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How to Change Your Life with One Small Move

Recently, the principles of Feng Shui—an ancient Chinese art which advocates a system of placement within a space to harmonize various energies—became incredibly important to me. (By sheer coincidence, there was an unpleasant job I didn’t want to do, and spending the afternoon rearranging my office seemed preferable.) After some time browsing Feng Shui websites, […]

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The Year of Getting Messy, and Four Things I Learned in the Sandbox

“Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy.”   Gandhi didn’t say that; neither did Oprah. Tim Ferriss? Close, but nope. One of my all-time favorite role models, Ms. Frizzle, was an eccentric 4th-grade science teacher at Walkerville Elementary School. She drove her students around on a Magic School Bus, where they would sometimes travel back […]

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In Praise of Boredom

I’ve wondered before about multipotentialites’ greatest fear. Last time I suggested it might be that each choice we make excludes all the other options we could have taken. Every time we do anything, we mourn an infinite number of lost futures. There’s another common dread that I hear over and over when talking to fellow multipods: boredom. […]

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What if I Lose Interest?

I was going to write about the difficulty of sticking to a task and seeing it through to the end, but I got bored, so here is a picture of a slightly squashed lemon instead: Luckily, this picture of a lemon has reminded me of something: it’s difficult to retain focus and motivation. Perhaps this […]

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The Multipotentialite Identity Crisis (Or What To Do When You’re NOT Interested in Something)

Ever since I first came across Puttylike, I’ve loved that the fact that I’m interested in pretty much everything. Dog training? That could be cool! Growing vegetables? Definitely doing that one day. Coding and programming? On my would-like-to-learn list. I’ve also prided myself on the fact that I’ve been able to teach myself to do […]

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“I Like Doing Hard Things”

I once met someone, a multipotentialite, who had had an intimidatingly impressive career. He had worked as a spy at an organization that is known by its 3-letter acronym, which I was asked not to repeat. He had an MBA and built huge businesses, he scuba dived. He was the kind of person I didn’t […]

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