How to be Everything - More books that changed my life

You can listen to the audio version of this post below.

This is a part of the October blog challenge. You can find the other posts here.

A friend of mine commented on a recent post about books that changed my life that she couldn’t choose just one. Neither could I! That is why this has been a weekly feature in these October blog posts. 

Today is about a book I read within the past few years that gave me a deeper sense of self acceptance. Before I mention it, I want to talk a bit about books in general. The amazing thing about a good book is that it can give you the gift of being somewhere else - in another country, on another world, in someone else’s story. When a book is fiction, we have a common acceptance with the writer (and other readers) that even if certain elements of the story may be true - the place where it is set, events that occurred around that time, and even the presence of real individuals from history - the story is a work of fiction and has been made up by the author or authors. We can still learn from these books, but we also understand that it is up to our interpretation.

When a book is non-fiction, different assumptions tend to be made. Authors can show their authority on the subject up-front, based on research, data collected, collaborations, and credentials from courses of study. They can also speak based on their own lived experience and that of others they have may have interviewed or researched. Some books are more journalistic, while others are more story based, with personal stories from the authors.

This is what I love about books and why I love encouraging people to write, and to be Everyday storytellers. But we must always remember that books are based on the perspective of the author, and that there may be more than one perspective. If there was one takeaway I got from my travels - it is that all of us as people are more similar than we think, and we have more in common than that which makes us different. AND that there are many different ways to live and to thrive. 

I find that sometimes, a non-fiction author can give the impression that his or her way is THE way, and that we need to follow the recommendations/strategies in the book to the letter if we want a specific result. It doesn’t always take into account that readers may have different values, different resources, different lives. And it also doesn’t always take into account that people are different. 

That is why I loved this book - How to Be Everything: A Guide for Those Who (Still) Don't Know What They Want to Be When They Grow Up by Emily Wapnick. Emily writes about being a multipotentialite - and she doesn’t subscribe to being one thing - especially in your career. Instead, the book is about how you can channel diverse passions and skills, to build a career and a life that makes space for not specializing, or not having one true calling. 

Here is an excerpt from my own book, where I expand on how Emily’s book impacted me.

I came across the term “scanner” in a book by Emilie Wapnick – How to Be Everything: A Guide for Those Who (Still) Don’t know What They Want to Be When They Grow Up. Emilie is a self-described “multi-potentialite” (another word for scanner). I found joy reading her book and listening to her story, as I could see so much of myself in there. She spoke about scanners as a group of people who have a wide variety of interests, and find it stifling to do just one thing.

Originally, this one was a tough lesson for me to come to grips with. In a world where there are people yelling “find your passion” from every rooftop, I had searched for mine high and low. I had even found it… Several times! I mean, it was different every time. I even took courses where the leader had said everyone definitely has one passion. Of course, they also said they would help me find mine. They were very disappointed when I found 7 or 8...

Reading Emilie’s experience was a breath of fresh air. And to discover there were many others out there who felt the same as me was a huge relief. I was beginning to think I should be medicated! And that’s just the point isn’t it? Sometimes it’s hard to not fit the mold of what we think we should be to the point of thinking we’re crazy. As a child and teen, I became an extremely good chameleon, able to fit myself into any situation. On the inside I was consumed with what I really wanted to do. And that feeling has led me more than once to seek therapy or counselling, when all I wanted was the freedom to simply be me without having to second guess myself. Discovering I could weave multiple interests into one job or a series of jobs, to allow myself to study something purely for pleasure that wouldn’t necessarily be an income stream, to allow myself to have the ultimate dream of doing three different jobs during the week instead of doing the same one day in and day out — all this was a huge weight off my shoulders. Even allowing myself to write this book any way I chose was a huge step for me.

I wrote last week about how a work of fiction was my permission slip to write MY way. And Emily’s book was a permission slip to be me, instead of trying to fit into a mold. It was a change from much of what I was reading and listening to.

There are two other books I have read since then that spoke to the multi-potentialite side of me and reinforced some of the ideas I read in Emily’s book. The first of these was Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World - by David Epstein where the author explored the benefits of having multiple interests, and also being able to cross reference that knowledge from one field to another. The second was Designing your life - by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans (and they have a few books under this title that look at career and life) where they use design principles to build a career or a life with intention. One of the standout ideas I loved from that book was the idea of having many lives, instead of getting hung up on the idea that there is only one path you can follow.

How to be everything was eye opening to me on so many levels. It was a much needed reminder that I can choose to read the books I resonate with, and choose the actions that I feel are best suited to me, and that there are many ways to live and to thrive, not just one way. 

I want to share another excerpt from a recent post - my theory of everything

There is no one way. As someone who discovered personal development in my late twenties, it was great to find authors and their books that I felt explained things about my behaviour that I couldn’t previously understand. And it was great until I started to come to the recommendations that they were making. Don’t get me wrong - many of them were good recommendations, but one thing that struck me was that the writers seemed to be suggesting that their solution was the way.

The way to eat, to meditate, to journal, to wake up in the morning, to go to sleep at night, to “find our passion”, to “fix” ourselves. As time went on, I became uncomfortable with the suggestions to do things a certain way. I have never felt as if I fit into any one box and for a long time, I felt as if I should, and that I needed to pick one thing, and focus on doing and being that one thing, if I wanted to make my way in the world. Choose a box.

And the fact that I didn’t want to sometimes left me feeling judged as people accused me of “lacking commitment” and questioned me about what was holding me back from picking something. I was pleased to find Emilie Wapnick’s book while I was going through this, and she wrote about being a multipotentialite in her book “How to be Everything” where for the first time I felt that being more than one thing wasn’t a sign of weakness, but was just a reflection of the fact that there is no one way to be.

That is a part of the reason why much of my blogging and my book is about ideas, and how I used them in my life. I want to stimulate you to have ideas about how to use these concepts in your life, based on who you are, and how you want to live, and what is important to you in terms of your values. The truth is - there are many ways to eat, to meditate, to wake up in the morning and so on - and we don’t even need to “fix ourselves” if we feel as if we don’t fit into one box or another.

Sometimes our greatest weaknesses are our greatest strengths. Sometimes our most colossal mistakes, and the horrible things that happen to us are the things that bring us gifts that we could never imagine. Those thoughts and dreams and desires that we have are legit, and don’t need to be replaced with other people’s versions of success. For me - I had to embrace that I wasn’t prepared to do or to be just one thing. To have just one message, or one interest. To commit to just one thing. Everything is a thing. There is no one way.

So - I would love to know - are you multi-passionate? Have you ever read a book that made you feel seen and validated? Tell me about it in the comments! And what is a book that changed your life?

And I send you big love from a small island.

PS I love the above photo by Jaredd Craig on Unsplash