An eggshell is a temporary restraint. It’s only necessary to keep a chick warm and protected till it’s ready to come out.
If you’re not a fan of chicks and would prefer eggs on your morning plate instead, the same would occur; the breaking of the shell. Some prefer it broken the endian way, some not. But it gets broken in the pursuit of a steamy, fragrant plate of masala deviled eggs, or just a menagerie of what looks like three sunny side ups, while you’re running late for your meeting and the sun is still up at 6 PM.
The real test of change is breaking free from that restraint. If hobbies were that easy to maintain, anyone would be able to do it. But because there is this restraint, call it time, ailment, or noisy neighbours, you attempt to break.
For the first time in life, breaking something actually feels fun. Why? Because of the reputation it brings with its results.
Because it’s hard. Because it’s not know to work always. Because no one you know has done it.
Some people stop pursuing their hobbies at the last point. They remind themselves.
“What’s the point of a hobby if my husband doesn’t understand it?” “What’s the point of a hobby if I can’t do it with my kids?” “What’s a hobby which doesn’t even pay me a minimum wage?”
And they do the reminding part quite painfully. Because deep down, it’s a dilemma. A dilemma of the angel and the demon on the shoulders speaking spit into either ear, of how you must love your hobby and that’s why you keep coming back to it and hold so deeply in your heart the want to fulfil it, while the other crams in specks of doubts of how you were never skilled enough for your hobby and therefore it remained, a hobby.
You can choose to bask in the thorough compliments of the angel to propel you forward, or remain vigilant of every mistake you’ve made on your watch while your hobby sulked.
Imagine passing by a patisserie on your stroll. Imagine smelling the fresh baked bread, the Danish pastries, the upside-down cake you fancy from outside the glassy windows, or just tiramisu, all trying to reel you in.
The moment you reach home, you sling your bag aside onto the sofa and dash towards the kitchen like you’re Flash’s younger brother. Your eye searches for ingredients, specific ones, until they fall on the right ones, namely wheat flour, raw eggs, and imported chocolate powder. You don your apron which was gathering dust on the L-shaped countertop. You don’t readily see the milk, so you reach for the refrigerator and yank it out so fast the milk almost falls. A speck of inspiration was all it was, most thanks to the Danish bakery, and some to your motivation which didn’t stand you up today.
You are so hungry. You are as famished as a child who hasn’t had spaghetti in days. You can’t bear to preheat the oven, because it takes ten minutes. When both the whiskey and your hand have overworked themselves and give up, your mittens take the baton from there. They carefully pour the cake batter into a baking pan, slyly open the oven door, throw the pan in, and close the door acting like you just threw a grenade into the river. You crank the heat upto a 180°C, and do a full 180 towards your bedroom as you wait to experience the Danish experience from before.
But wait doesn’t await you. Before the oven timer hits zero, you wear the mittens back and yank the cake out - way before it was supposed to be ready. Instead of keeping it in for a solid 25 minutes, what’s a 5 minute give or take? You think.
After all, you’re hungrier than your stomach allows you to be.
You can’t help but notice the fresh smell of chocolate peering over to your nostrils. What you do not notice is that the cake hasn’t been fully baked. It’s not dry. You wish you would have pricked the cake with a toothpick, and that it came out clean, but you were too hungry, right? It’s far from being crunchy, and you like edges. But now that you’re lazy enough to not rebake it, you sit with your soggy excuse and eat your soggy cake.
Such is the life of a half-baked person.
If you’re trying ten hobbies at once, and nothing sticks, you’re not a multi-potentialite; you’re ruining your life. Instead of letting one cake bake in the oven for a certain time and then eating it when it’s perfectly ready, you’re trying to bake ten cakes in the oven at the speed of light. You think it’s possible, but all you get is ten soggy cakes, wasted ingredients, and no one wants to buy your cakes.
Your goal in life is to become a fully baked person. A person who excels at some things, if not many things. If you think of paintings, Bob Ross might come to mind. He might also be a good cook, a great cook, but you are not reminded of him when you walk into your kitchen. Instead, you’re reminded of other chefs who are known to excel at, well, cooking.
Your goal in life is to be known for one thing, and one thing only for now. No matter which phase you’re in life right now, you can change. If a guy who invented the steam engine could learn to write when he was past eighteen, and KFC could have been launched when a guy was past a person’s usual midlife, it’s totally possible to change into a person who stays true to one hobby, and gets to become the best artisan he knows in that field.