Close your eyes. Picture an image you have of a ‘Jack of all Trades’. What did you see?
In the past, I’d see the silhouette of a capable individual of many talents. A person with an astounding ability to be able to adapt to anything, and to become everything. Someone utterly amazing, too bright to behold.
People would tell me that I was good at sports. They’d say that I had a knack for the arts. Some would even praise me for my incredibly mundane humour whenever I told them about the guys that walked into to a bar. It wasn’t long before I started attributing myself to this idealistic notion I had of the ‘Jack of all Trades’. How could I not?
But unlike my voice, my wisdom started to mature, and as I aged, the illusion finally wore off.
I started doubting the image I had of the ‘Jack of all Trades’. Was it really what I’d thought it to be? It wasn’t long before I realised that my notions of the ‘Jack of all Trades’ were not quite on the mark. It was nothing as grandiose as I’d made it out to be. On the contrary, it was everything I despised about myself.
I would beg my parents for a guitar, only to stop using it after I’d learned a single song. I would buy a Wacom Intuos, only to stop using it after having drawn just a few pairs of eyes. I would start up my own blog, only to stop writing on it before even a year had passed.
I’ve always had this desire to discover the unknown, and so I sought to learn new things and to try them all out. But I was never capable nor invested enough to reach the heights that I’d set out for myself. Things always just kind of fell short.
I’d spend weeks learning the Japanese Hiragana and Katakana, only to stop practicing and learning right when I was just about ready to go even further: to be able to communicate in the language.
Life for me is just this endless cycle of starting everything on a high before slowly pouring less and less of myself into the things that I do.
A Jack of many trades, perhaps I was. But not as one who could do everything, but as one who couldn’t do anything. A Master of None.
Why hello there, thanks for reading this far! I wanted to try posting again, so here I am.
Please don’t take this post to heart. These are but the useless ravings in my head as I sit down on the toilet at the crack of dawn.
I’m just bummed that I can’t read or speak Japanese after all this time… Or write a story… And draw a manga… Or be as good as Asima Kousei at the piano….
TigerAnime 
Sounds like you need a rival. Someone to compete with on a friendly level, to push you further than you dreamed possible. At least that’s what shounen anime has taught me!
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Hahaha that’s a pretty solid idea. Maybe this will shift the gears in my life, to have me finally reach my own training arc!
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Plus Ultra!
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I hear ya – I’m a bit the same when it comes to my interests. (And I guess that this is also the worst year to hold on to motivation, huh?)
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Well it’s nice to know that I’m not the only stray cat here haha. Here’s to hoping that times will get better, for us and the world.
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You’re definitely not alone, yeah 😀
And same!
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Don’t be too hard on yourself. Unlike in video games, we can’t just “level up” and instantly have become better. Learning anything at all is such a painfully slow process that it’s often hard to even recognize that we’ve made any progress at all over short periods of time, which can be days to even months.
And while there are many motivators out there, I think that progress itself is a great one. You just have to be patient enough to actually see it, which is the difficult part!
I too am learning Japanese, and while it doesn’t feel like I’ve gotten much better since I first came here, aside from learning more kanji, people have told me that it has. I still feel like I’m fumbling whenever I attempt to speak Japanese, but I guess I have made progress even if I can’t see it for myself.
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In my eyes you’re a success story Yomu haha. Sounds like you’re doing well over there in Japan, so I’m glad.
Thanks for the motivation! Unfortunately, patience (or persistence rather) is the one virtue I do not have, yet, which is the underlying problem of this entire post about me. It’s not really about whether or not I can make progress, because I usually lose interest before I do. I lose focus after the smallest of results, then proceed to channel my energy elsewhere. I’m not as disappointed about my lack of achievements, but rather the lack of persistence in me.
I don’t know why I’m like this, but it would be a dream to see what would happen if I were to let myself ‘level up’ through slow and steady progress over the course of the coming years. Unfortunately I doubt my ability to keep at things long enough for any flowers to bloom.
Then again, this post was more of a form of release, rather than a self-fulfilling prophecy. So don’t worry, I’ll get as strong as you someday, heh.
:d
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You’ve had some great comments so far!
Just to throw one more idea out there…
Is it possible you’re still looking for something that captures your imagination?
Or is the issue that you’re reluctant to embrace success?
And “None of the above” can be a correct answer!
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Hmm. I guess you could say that I’m still looking for something. I don’t know haha. But perhaps I’m more frustrated by the fact that I don’t do enough in everything I do…
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I find this to be relatable especially with starting new hobbies only to drop them when I felt like I wasn’t learning fast enough. Some things I stuck with, but I wondered if I really was talented in those fields.
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I guess for me it’s more of myself losing interest in whatever I do fairly quickly, rather than being disappointed at my lack of progress. But the result of this is of course, a lack of progress in everything I do, which is why I consider myself to be a Master of None.
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I see. I can be too perfectionistic and I want to be good fast which does hinder me a lot.
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Yeah I can see how that would be a hindrance in your situation… But I guess there are also a lot of benefits to being a perfectionist, something only you can do that others can’t.
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It can be. Sure, it forces me to fine-tune my work, but I can overdo it or give up if I’m not good enough in a certain period of time.
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https://matt-in-the-hat.com/2020/10/29/the-mystery-blogger-award-by-mara/
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You know, I have a similar issue. I have a few things in my life that have stuck but all of them are hobbies I pick up and drop and then go back to. NOTHING has lasted long enough to make a profession out of. Over time I became a treasure trove of vast amounts of useless information.
Never met a job yet whose primary requirement was just to think about things while taking long walks in the woods. It probably exists but I lack the social skills to get it.
That short attention span probably has some deep seated psychological reason. Or maybe I was born that way. ADD, Asperger’s, depression, all militated against my making a career level dent in any particular subject. Even a decent into total hedonism eventually gets boring.
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It surprises me that I can relate to almost all of the things you’ve said. I guess we both have yet to find the right drive and purpose, especially given our personalities and character.
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