I do believe that unlimited choices are inherently problematic and cause discontentment. I can see in other people when they are pulled in too many directions whether professionally or personally it causes them stress and unhappiness.
My variety of interests will never go away. But I can choose to have only a limited number of true passions. At this point in my life this isn’t really an “option”. With Ava and one on the way, the time I have to devote to personal pursuits is limited.
One option is to concentrate full-time on being a parent and full-time on being a CPA. I think that everyone deserves something that they can call only their own so I think also having one personal passion is acceptable and worthwhile.
I have one career, one family, and one passion.
Easy enough.
That said, picking that “one passion” is pretty tricky. (Family and career, not so much.)
I’ve been in this place before and have strayed back and forth. I think I choose a lot of hobbies not completely because, but partially because, I see them as worthwhile, or socially acceptable, or almost obligatory (reading classics? working out? volunteering?) None of these are bad things and while I enjoy them, if I can only have one passion then it will have to be something I am 100% invested in for me, not for anyone else.
Eliminating hobbies will also help me declutter my house. I love having less stuff. Minimizing my possessions has been a process that has unfolded over the last two years. It has definitely reduced my stress and increased my satisfaction with my home. I know that the less stuff “in my way” when baby shows up the better I will be able to handle the stress that comes with a newborn.
Now I am cheating a bit. Being a CPA and being a parent comes with some required skill sets that can only be achieved through lifetime learning and process improvement. A lot of my hobbies will remain intact as they apply to those two parts of my life (entrepreneurship, cooking, etc). I will still have to read and meet new people and discuss ideas related to those two roles. However, I do need to keep those extracurricular activities in check. They need to directly improve my ability to parent or work. Cooking classic French cuisine really provides no benefit to Ava or Adam who would much rather have oven nachos for dinner then anything I may learn from Julia Childs.
So, what should my passion be?
Ideas that have been eliminated:
Crafts – I am really terrible at crafts. I do enjoy having a creative outlet but the end result is a disaster. This hobby also takes up a lot of space in my home. It produces clutter. I also don’t like how commercialized the crafting industry is. It shouldn’t cost me more to make something that looks worse than something that is manufactured. Who is benefiting there? Michael’s and Joann Fabrics. Obviously this doesn’t apply to crafts I will do with my daughter for her benefit.
Scrapbooking – I feel that scrapbooking and picture taking is an obligation of a good parent. We are the custodian of memories for our children who will want to grow up and see pictures from their past. That said, the scrapbooking industry is a joke. Notice the term includes the word “scrap”. So why does it cost $50 to put a photo book together? Because no one uses scraps – they use fancy paper and stickers and rubber stamps and have Cricut machines and fancy printers to print the pages. That and… I tried it and I’m just as terrible at scrapbooking as I am other crafts. I have a solution to this though which I’ll post about at another time.
TV & Movies – This is easy. I don’t like TV at all. I feel guilty after wasting away in front of it. I hate all the ads on TV. I don’t want my daughter watching it (she doesn't). Movies are fun but pretty easy to eliminate as well. I will definitely still catch the occasional flick with my hubby. Oh and football. I love to read in front of the tv when football is on.
Ideas that still have potential:
Reading, in general
Genealogy
Local politics
Feminism
Consumerism
Vegetarianism
Languages
Computer Science
Information/Library
Science
Cooking
Fashion
History
Art
Hiking/Outdoors
Working Out
Beauty
Mythology
Writing
I conjured that list by looking at my Goodreads to-read list, my Google Reader blogroll, and my email that has been piling up over the last week as I approached the 9/17 deadline at work. This might take awhile to figure out. I’ll pay close attention to how I choose to spend my free time in the following weeks.
