Is it better to be a Renaissance man and explore other areas of interest and skills or to be sharply focused on something specific? The generalist versus specialist question has been an issue for all of my adult life. I didn’t go to university right after high school and I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I “grew up”. So I entered the workforce and learned anything and everything I could when I could.
Fast forward a few years when I did go to college to learn about something specific. I got bored and restless. Once I arrived back into the workforce I reverted to the old ways of gleaning all of the on-the-job training I could get my hands on. I’ve done well in this because I can pick up new skills and ideas fairly quickly. Learning one thing to another was the anti-boring. My mind becomes active and I can have intelligent conversations with people from most fields of work.
The issue I am seeing now is that people are looking for specifics. For those of you with a certain skill set or training, you are the target market. Being a generalist is fine and dandy for awhile but it makes for a lousy and unfulfilled life. How can you compete with the specialists who have dedicated their lives into focusing on one or two things?
I need to adjust my focus. The issue for me is I do not know what I want to focus on. My generalist tendencies are kicking in because of this lack of focus. What am I good at? What can I make money with? At this point of my life I am less concerned about happiness and more on providing for my family. I need to either get a new life lens or clean the one I have and get my focus straight.
More on this later as I am still working it out.
Recovered from the Internet Archive.
