Embracing My Inner Dabbler: A Project

I dabble. That's what I do. I'm a dabbler. It's who I am. Dabbling is both my best and worst quality. To define my dabbling, I'd say it is my passionate desire to try and experience many things in many categories, but without the focus or passion to follow through on any of them. I believe myself capable of and interested in much, but either too lazy, too indecisive, too busy, too...something to accomplish much. I know this dabbler's spirit is probably a characteristic I share with many other people in this world, but for some reason, my definition of dabbling has really come to define me.

As one example, and the impetus for this blog, I have recently researched freelance writing, for magazines, in particular. I'm currently reading a book, Literary Mama, that suggests exercises intended to help the writer hone in on a specific audience and the most promising publications to approach based on the writer's interests and writing style. These exercises required me to write keywords to describe myself, choose the four that best defined me currently, and then delve into what makes me uniquely qualified to write something for those four particular audiences. I realized a few things while completing these exercises. First, I have too many interests, but very little actual knowledge or experience in any of them. Second, I tried to cram about forty interests into one audience...doesn't work. Third, I found myself writing the words young, fresh, beginner, new, and try a few too many times to ignore. I got the message loud and clear.

I decided that, rather than punish myself for 28 years of unfocused dabbling, I would embrace it, celebrate it, and share the results. Sure, I could decide to take one key word and focus in on it and push everything else out of my brain until I had mastered one thing, but...that's not like me, is it?

I knew a girl in college, she had the same name as me, and I thought her beautiful in an approachable way, intellectual in a genius-but-not-completely-nerdy-and-socially-uncomfortable way, and an altogether admirable person. She volunteered. She made straight A's. She looked like Cameron Diaz. But more than any of that, what I admired about her was her focus. She had wanted to be a doctor since childhood. She had done everything in her power to put her on a direct path towards being a doctor : active as a candy striper during high school, took every high school science she could, took all the right classes in college, continued to volunteer and intern with local hospitals, got excellent grades and went to medical school. Now she's a doctor. She is fascinating to me in that she is my life antithesis. I can't fathom that sort of passion for one subject. I don't lack the discipline that she has, but I do lack her focused desire and I envy hers.

To illustrate, here is just a sampling of the topics in which I have expressed interest just this month:

writing children's books
writing greeting card messages
writing a novel
freelance writing/entering writing contests for newspapers, magazines, newsletters, journals, etc.
blogging
home décor
home organization
rock climbing
basketball
attachment parenting
paper collage
jewelry making
agility training my corgi
home cooking
calligraphy
bookbinding and book arts
yoga
teaching music classes

Add the pile of ten books next to my bed that I want to read, a nine month old, a husband, and many baskets of laundry and my problem is clear. As I see it, I can scratch all but one item off my list and focus or I can embrace my inner dabbler and share my results with the world. For now, I choose the latter. Who knows! One of these days I might come across something that I'm just as passionate about as my college alter ego. So I will dabble like I have never dabbled before, attentively. If I can't seem to focus on a topic, than I will focus on my desire to dablle, to experience all that life has to offer me, which is a lot, since I like to experience just about everything! Here we go. This is a record of the projects, large and small, in the life of a quintessential dabbler.