It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#13 - You kill off other, genuine interests in order to pursue your dream.

I think we Boomer types were sold a bill of goods when we were growing up. "You can be whatever you want," we were told. The subtext was "pick one thing to be and work at it as hard as you can."

The trouble is, I was always (and still am) interested in so many things.

Space. Classical music. Quantum theory (for the lay person). Science. Art. Bicycling. Mountains. Greek and Roman history. Interpersonal relationships. A great summer's day. And so many others.

Movies and theater are in there too. But not to the extent that they cancel out all the others. And so, I was confused for a long time, thinking I needed to spend more time on one thing, instead of allowing myself to pick and choose from among many.

This is especially true for someone like me, who isn't a prodigy in anything. I think the prodigies (the Spielbergs, Stephen Kings, and others who excel at one thing) have been held up too long as the benchmark. "Be like them," we've been led to believe.

When the real message should be "be like you."

[pictured: David finally meets the Blue Fairy who can grant him his wish in Spielberg's AI: Artificial Intelligence.]