Refuse to Choose!: Use All of Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams

by Barbara Sher

What you’ve assumed is a disability to be overcome by sheer will is actually an exceptional gift. You are the owner of a remarkable, multitalented brain trying to do its work in a world that doesn’t understand who you are and doesn’t know why you behave as you do.

you should stop trying to fit into the accepted norm at once and begin learning about who you really are.

should have realized I wasn’t a normal student my first week of college, when I looked at the catalog of classes and started to cry.

Lol, this makes odd sense to me

In easy-to-read English, the book laid out the topics that would be discussed and the books that would be read. It was like nothing I had ever seen or even imagined before. I could feel my mouth drop open in surprise as I read one page after another.

OMG this is so me

“Oh my God,” I whispered, turning the pages wildly. “They have the History of Western Music! Do they play the music or do they talk about it? How do you teach the history of music?! Do you have to read music to take this? Oh look, Ancient Trade Routes of Central Asia! Look! The Golden Peaches of Samarqand! Where is Samarqand?! I want one of those peaches! Or are they talking about a painting? The Geology of History? The Geology of History?!

Meeeeeee!!!?

I had walked into the universe of learning.

Relate

understood them. I was sure of it. If I had known how, I would have tried to become a monk so I too could reverently copy manuscripts like they did, almost as a form of prayer.

I signed up for 10.

Lol

And I still audit classes in any college I’m near whenever I can. In which subjects? It doesn’t matter, as long as the teacher is good. They’re all interesting.

To what practical use did I put my learning in the years that followed? I did nothing. I just loved learning and wanted to keep on doing it.

I never did anything practical with the other things I loved, either. I didn’t write about or teach what I had learned. I never earned a nickel from any of it. My

Meeee

it’s not always so practical to be so practical. Now

whenever I pick up a book or watch the Science Channel or try to read a map of Asia for no particular reason—that life is amazing and there is no end to the wonder of it.

students inquired why I was taking classes, I could never explain. I felt caught and a little ashamed. The prevailing attitude was that “perennial students” like me were lazy or immature, wouldn’t buckle down, wouldn’t do the “hard stuff”

Thats true. People say "perpetual student" with derision

I began to notice clients here and there who reminded me of myself as I was that first day in college. They loved too many different things to ever choose one. They never wanted to stop exploring, trying things out, or learning, but they didn’t direct their learning toward any goal.

Aristotle and Goethe, da Vinci and Ben Franklin—people whose interests were also all over the map—to see if I could find a clue to help me. As I looked through the books of their journals and letters, I noticed something odd: None of these people seemed to have the slightest problem about not sticking with one field!

Scanners, because instead of diving down into the depths of an interest, we scanned the horizon for many interests.

Or they had never even tried one because they couldn’t make up their minds in the first place.

Should they write, or travel, or make art, or start home businesses? They didn’t want to choose one area; they wanted them all.

Meeee

There is no academic path to train you in the best use of your irrepressible curiosity or to direct your fast mind into a multidirectional specialty.

Precisely!!

to the senior who reads and writes and travels and has a very fine time with her dozens upon dozens of interests. And maybe I did put one thing I learned in college to practical use, after all: I found out what it’s like to want to learn everything and have no one to show me what to do. In this book, I’m using that experience to understand and try to help you.

In front of her, still in the paper bag from the store, are four books she bought months ago about the history of Poland.

Lol truth

No. Elaine remembers that she promised her 8-year-old daughter a costume for a party coming up in a few weeks, and she really should get started on that and leave all this for another day.

Literally, this has happened to me

Every single thing she sees or thinks of sparkles with potential and pulls her attention. She wants to do them all.

Elaine doesn’t have attention deficit disorder. She checked it out with doctors long ago. And she knows that when she’s involved in any project, she doesn’t get distracted by irrelevant things.

Me! Very focused when i do something; very torn over which

She doesn’t blame her friends and family for smiling knowingly whenever she gets enthused about something new—she lets that roll off her back easily—but it bothers her that she almost never gets to see an end product.

So this is the first thing not to totally resonate. I do finish most projects even though I often dont continue doing more of that thing. So I might learn to play Somewhere Over the Rainbow on ukelele but then learn no further uke songs. Or learn cake decorating but only do one cake for a party and then never again.

Are you unable to figure out what drives you and why you’re so different from people who made their choices early and followed one path?

My bigge problem is: how do i reliablyh turn my many loves into dollars on which i can live?

Scanners love to read and write, to fix and invent things, to design projects and businesses, to cook and sing, and to create the perfect dinner party.

...and knit and craft and do puzzles and design a system and organize things and grow plants and make scrapbook pages and turn trash into treasures and pet kitties and train dogs and photograph high school seniors...

Intense curiosity about numerous unrelated subjects is one of the most basic characteristics of a Scanner. Scanners are endlessly inquisitive. In fact, Scanners often describe themselves as being hopelessly interested in everything

Scanner doesn’t want to specialize in any of the things she loves, because that means giving up all the rest. Some

I call it the SCANNER DAYBOOK. Scanners often avoid getting involved with a new, fascinating subject when it catches their eye. They say things like, “How can I justify wandering off in yet another direction?” But that’s a real shame, because they’re not breaking any laws or hurting anyone by being curious or enthusiastic by some new thought.

Writing in your Scanner Daybook is more important than you may yet realize.

But the very act of considering your explorations worth keeping track of begins to change everything you ever thought about yourself.

because it becomes so clear that planning, designing, and making a record of your ideas in something called a Scanner Daybook isn’t making a promise; it’s the way inventive people enjoy themselves.

Scanners shouldn’t throw ideas out like trash, no matter how many they may have, no matter how “half-baked” the ideas may be. Respect for ideas is the same as respect for the idea maker: you.

Let’s end the notion that ideas have no value unless they turn into a business

Nothing deprecating is allowed. Praise is due,

This is one difference. I dont feel bad about my many interest in my heart. That map brought me great joy. The one thing I agree with is i feel slight shame for other people to see my map and know what it means. And i do often feel bad about my joys not generating a dime of income.

Some of you might even get a bit intimidated by how many things she manages to do in her life. Don’t be. I bet you don’t realize how many remarkable things you’ve done and wouldn’t have thought to list them like Pamela did.

True story

Do it now. Pick up your pencil and start writing. Give yourself about 5 minutes to write, then come back when you’re finished.

So funny cause i beat her to it and did this already , except I only did about 15 years as on Pam's list. And actually it is a quite impressive list.

I wish I was like those people who know exactly what they want from the start.”

the ease with which they answer The Big American Question: “What do you do?”

They buy books that tell them how to find their passion, and they go to career testing services to find out what they’re supposed to be doing,

Scanners don’t want fewer interests

They have special abilities in many areas, and they’re built to use them.

they’re divergent thinkers

Most Scanners aren’t as attached to stability as other people.

This is one major difference for me. I AM attached to stability. It is one reason the dabs of money from multiple quarters does bother me.

They don’t mind being beginners as much as most adults,

True

A bee’s Reward is nectar. Ella’s Reward is learning about subjects that are completely new to her and helping people with her new knowledge. What’s yours? It’s not a question you can answer without thinking about it for a moment, but you do know the answer.

In most cases it is probably this: does it produce something admirable, something I can be proud of? Secondarily, do I feel engaged and alert while I am learning it?

But something did go away. It was the challenge to go from ignorance to competence, that steep climb to master something that demands every bit of focus I have. I love that kind of challenge.

Scanners love learning more than anything else. And learning is what they’re most talented at.