On the boat everything is squashed and condensed down to a fraction of what it was originally, food is dried, sleep is squashed into four-hour slots, and soon you end up with a ridiculous amount of time in the day. Think of how much time is spent doing your daily chores out of necessity, what happens when you don’t have to bother with that? When someone else is taking charge of the cleaning and cooking and engine and water and every other role on the boat but yours? When every second of your time is spent towards reaching a common goal. That is when you really achieve something.
I have spent the last year doing the very opposite with time, indulging hours in whatever pastime captures my fancy that particular day. Is this lifestyle any less fulfilling? I don’t think so, but a few months down the line you will notice that you are no further towards the big idea that is always on your mind, like the book you must write, or the subject you want to become an expert in, or the job you want to have. It takes a strong person to be able to cope in this environment, but an even stronger one to use the environment against our natural inclinations to relax and have fun. E.g., if YOU had a choice between spending the next day reading about the origins of lemons and playing golf or going to the beach, which would you rather do? A clever person would bring the book on lemons to the beach with them, but I am not so good at planning and unfortunately that means that I am caught between the two, achieving neither a goal or deriving enjoyment from it, the day has become a paltry concoction of the two, the worst bits of both brought out.
I think that achieving any goal from beginning to end takes the work of two people – I’m not saying that you need another person, but that you need to become two people.
If your goal is to write a book or essay, first give yourself the task of having the ideas, scribbling random notes down, without thinking about the construction or editing of the subject matter, and the creative flow will become easier. Then once you have ripped apart the subject for ideas and have a couple that you would really like to pursue, then you give yourself the task of filling in the gaps between the ideas, explaining, connecting and making it easy for an outsider to read. If needs be, you can hand the finished piece back to the first person where they can give you their creative opinion on which bits to cut and which word would be better there.
Sound like I have multiple personalities? Well, perhaps we all do. You know how being around different people and having to do different jobs requires different sides of you be more prominent? E.g., in school I did physics, maths and art all together. Everyone thought it was a strange mix but I thought it was perfect, because it included and developed all sides of my personality, the rational, the methodical and the creative.
It is strange that we have to end up doing only one job, getting the training for it in university and having a specialized role in a large organization. But then some people are attracted to a life of work that included many roles, but finding that a life of school and an education that has narrowed down their range of talents and vision so that starting your own business or being an artist or sailing round the world by yourself is much harder than you would have thought as the thinking of all possible aspects and outcomes is incredibly overwhelming.
What do you do and do you find it hard doing many jobs at once? Write a comment and let me know.
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