Being Multidimensional in a Unidimensional World

I was introduced to Emilie Wapnick’s Ted Talk on “multipotentialites” and “why some of us don’t have one true calling” last year. She spoke very eloquently about the pressure of the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and how damaging it can be to those she calls, “multipotentialites” — people who don’t feel called in one direction, but who have many interests, many jobs, and many interlocking potentials.

Personally, I have been saying for years that very few eighteen-year-olds are capable of deciding what they want to do or “be” (as if our careers are our entire identity) for the next forty years of their lives. The human brain doesn’t even finish developing and maturing until the mid- to late twenties, not to mention the fact that most teenagers haven’t been exposed to the multitude of different avenues available to them in this multidimensional world.

They are usually only aware of the few careers of those around them or what their parents want them to be.

Emilie goes on to say that in her own experience,

I would become interested in an area and I would dive in, become all-consumed, and I’d get to be pretty good at whatever it was, and then I would hit this point where I’d start to get bored, and usually I would try and persist anyway.

But eventually this sense of boredom, this feeling of like, yeah, I got this, this isn’t challenging anymore, it would get to be too much, and I would have to let it go.

This resonated with me, as during the course of my life I have been: a banker, an au pair, a foreign exchange consultant, a personnel recruiter, a website designer, an office manager, an administrative assistant, a business developer, a social services worker, a foster carer recruiter and developer, an educator, a content creator, and a writer.

I didn’t set out to change careers multiple times, neither did I consciously want to jump from job to job, I just simply got bored. Nothing called to me strongly enough to devote my life to it, so there was something incredibly satisfying for me in watching Emilie’s video.

Almost as though I was being vindicated from years of questions, raised eyebrows, and overt judgement as people responded to my laundry list of careers.

Emilie adds:

Ask yourself where you learned to assign the meaning of wrong or abnormal to doing many things. I’ll tell you where you learned it. You learned it from the culture.

It’s true that most cultures force us to choose a path to follow as we aren’t allowed to be multiple things. The saying “Jack of all trades, master of none,” is designed to reinforce this unidimensional thinking pattern so prevalent in our societies. It’s also ridiculous as many “Jack of all trades” become masters of these trades due to the dedication and passion that they flood into their tasks from day one.

Emilie goes on to ask:

What if you’re someone who isn’t wired this way?

I would answer that most of us aren’t. Here’s the thing, there are more people in this world than not who don’t want to commit themselves to one job in one industry for forty years, retire with a whimper, and then spend the rest of their lives trying to fit everything in that they couldn’t do when they were playing the traditional game.

God bless the millennials who appear to have seen the dysfunction of the old and tired system of employment and just flat-out said, “no!” Why would they want to be at the mercy of corporations deciding what to pay them, how long they need to work, and when they can take a bathroom break? Why not simply play video games online or create YouTube videos or become Insta-famous?

Call them lazy, call them whatever you wish, I take my hat off to them.

Emilie concludes by outlining the unique set of skills that “multipotentialites” have.

Number 1: idea synthesis, the ability to combine two or more fields to create something new — I could be thrown into any start-up and know how to resolve issues in finance, recruitment, human resources, business development, IT, training, and content writing. I have brought my knowledge from many of these areas into new roles and come up with innovative solutions on numerous occasions.

Number 2: rapid learning, we go in hard and observe everything as we are used to being beginners — I had a family friend edit my first attempt at writing a book and learned so much from that experience that when I submitted my first draft of “The Well-Travelled Cat” to her, she was surprised at how much better my writing had gotten. I had absorbed her notes and suggestions which, without a doubt, made me a better writer.

Number 3: adaptability, the ability to morph into what you need to be. I can present a new piece of software or idea to members of a board or sit around a campfire with elders and discuss history and be equally comfortable in both places. I can take the lead or I can be a cog in the wheel. This skillset has made being a digital nomad and an immigrant many times over much easier to handle.

I have found a passion in writing that I never anticipated, and whilst I wouldn’t give up my multidimensional history for anything in the world, I feel that this will be the one thing that sticks… although I will be juggling it with a few other ventures I have planned!

Can I get a “hell yeah” and an “amen” from all you multidimensional, multipotentialite people out there?

Thank you Emilie, and all the others that are paving the way to make this world far more multidimensional.