Being the proverbial 'Jack of all Trades' actually sucks. It might seem nice to know that no matter what you try, you'll be good at it; but in reality in the end you just feel like 'second best
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Looking everywhere I can and fidgeting with things that seemed interesting along the way. Some I was good at, some I felt strongly about, but it took a lot of trial and error to come to the right combo. Now I take pictures, and revel in it; and I use my techie side to fund it. If I was ever really struggling with the idea of something being fulfilling or not; I'd just ponder and talk it over with some trusted folk. And if it came right down to it, moving on to something else was better than sticking with something that I wasn't satisfied with.
I find that being a multi-talented person, frequently the best thing I can do is to help coordinate and take advantage of overlaps in things I'm good at. I'm not the best biologist, and I'm pretty good but not olympic-quality at computer graphics, but I do know enough that I can talk intelligently with biologists, have them help me understand their work, and represent it in computer graphics. In some ways, the crossover is a rarer (albeit less easy to "sell") talent than just being good at one thing in particular. I have no idea if this is something you'd want to do, but as an artist and a programmer, you certainly have the opportunity to bridge the common gap of artists who say "I wish these programmers understood what features we artists really want" and the programmers who say "these artists are all vague and confusing, we don't know what they want." That's just a specific example I made up, of course, but the general approach of "be best at seeing things from different perspectives" seems to make me feel like I'm best at something
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I really do feel a lot of the time as though I'm not advancing any more in the things I do. I watch other people doing the same pursuits as me, and see them consistently getting better and better, surpassing me, and it feels like I'm not getting anywhere no matter how much I work at it. I wish I could improve at that same initial rate :)
This sounds really arrogant to say, but I know how you feel. Being generally good at lots of things can be hard. It gives you the ego of someone who's good at things, without the focus to make you great.
Even if you were only good at one thing, though, bear in mind that the 'best' is really, really hard to get. As in, no one gets it. If you were only good at art, for example, and your art were divinely, spectacularly glorious, and people wept with joy every time they looked at it...someone else would still be better. Someone is always better, sometime, somewhere, in some way.
The important thing is not to try to be better than everyone else, but to try being better than yourself.
I guess what I was trying to say is not so much that I want to be 'the best in the world' or anything like that - I just want to feel like I'm personally focusing on the one thing that I do better than other things.
I don't really have an answer for this one, but reading your entry actually brightened my day. I'm a relatively recent fan of your artwork, and have suffered from the same feelings of "good at lots of things" but I feel as if I always know someone who does everything better than I do. It's reassuring to know that other people feel the same way. I too divide my time between being a logical accountant (profession) and personal creative pursuits (reading, writing, knitting, etc.)
Honestly, I've found the best way to deal with this is to pursue my many hobbies and enjoy them to the fullest. Accept that I'll never be "the best" and enjoy the skills I've accumulated. After all, the more diverse a person's background skills, the more interesting they are. And personally, I've decided I'd rather be interesting. ^_^
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I really do feel a lot of the time as though I'm not advancing any more in the things I do. I watch other people doing the same pursuits as me, and see them consistently getting better and better, surpassing me, and it feels like I'm not getting anywhere no matter how much I work at it. I wish I could improve at that same initial rate :)
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Even if you were only good at one thing, though, bear in mind that the 'best' is really, really hard to get. As in, no one gets it. If you were only good at art, for example, and your art were divinely, spectacularly glorious, and people wept with joy every time they looked at it...someone else would still be better. Someone is always better, sometime, somewhere, in some way.
The important thing is not to try to be better than everyone else, but to try being better than yourself.
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Honestly, I've found the best way to deal with this is to pursue my many hobbies and enjoy them to the fullest. Accept that I'll never be "the best" and enjoy the skills I've accumulated. After all, the more diverse a person's background skills, the more interesting they are. And personally, I've decided I'd rather be interesting. ^_^
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