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On Pruning Your Passions

We live in a hobby-rich world. There is no shortage of pastimes to grow a passion for. There is a shortage of one thing: time to indulge those passions. If you're someone who pours your heart into that one thing that makes your life worthwhile, that's a great deal. But, what if you've got no shortage of interests that draw your attention and you realize you will never have the time for all of them?

If I look at all the things I'd love to do with my life as a rose bush I'm tending, I realize that careful pruning is essential for the best outcome. This is a hard lesson to learn, because it can mean cutting beautiful flowers and watching the petals fall to the ground to wither. It has to be done.

I have a full time job that takes a lot of my mental energy. I have a wife and a son and family time is very important in my house. I try to read more, and I want to keep up with new developments in my career, and I'm trying to make time for simple, intentional relaxing to lower my anxiety and stress. That doesn't leave a lot of room to pursue any of these hobbies.

I used to play the guitar, if only a bit.

I've always had my eye on becoming a writer.

Software development began as a passion hobby, and now that it is a carrier I still feel that draw to it outside of work.

A lot of my life was spent under the assumption that I would end up in some career as an artist, and I was even on a trajectory towards art school in my teens.

But there aren't enough days in the year, or hours in any of those days, to scratch 100% of those itches.

So, I'm committing to saying "No" to myself more often. When I'm looking for a small app or tool and can't find just the right thing, I'm going to say "No" to building my own, instead of making the best option work. When NaNoWriMo rolls around next year, I'm not going to cause myself anxiety over the "Will I? Won't I?" leading up, and I'm going to admit that it just doesn't work for me. When I end my work day, I'm going to leave the web development at work.

I will be saying "No" to myself on all these interests so I can direct my "Yes" whole heartedly to one: my blossoming foray into game development. And this is a really deliberate choice! Game development is what got me into computers and into programming. But, its also something multi-faceted in a way that few other pursuits are. By throwing myself fully into my game projects, I'll be able to spend time created art, to code outside of work and learn new techniques and paradigms, and to tell stories.

I'm putting down a lot of interests, and shelving a lot of personal projects. I have dozens of bits of code that'll only collect dust from now on, even though I think of them often and constantly feel the pull to hack on them in the evening or weekends. But, I have convinced myself this is for the best. I'm working on making 2017 a big year for me, and I can't do that when I'm pulled in a thousand directions.

Learning to give up just may be the ticket to finally succeeded.


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