While some people come out of
their mother’s womb with a calling attached to their umbilical, some of us
struggle with the decision to choose a single calling even after a second
degree. The indecisiveness is not because we don’t know what we want to do with
our lives but we are just too gifted to be strait-jacketed into one career for
the rest of our temporal existence.
However, it is quite common to
find our parents, guardians, teachers and the larger society baffle us with
their expectations, wishes and goals. Our parents want us to be doctors and
lawyers whereas we also want to write like Jane Austen and paint like Michael
Angelo. Our teachers think we will make good engineers but we also know how to
take the best photographs ever seen. In fact, some of us know how to sing till
angels lose consciousness but we also take delight in nursing people till their
wounds heal. These types of people are called multipotentialites. They are individuals with myriad potentials and
interests to pursue more than one career.
Multipotentialites do not have
one true calling. They have various interests across many domains and can excel
in more than one profession. They should not be confused with career nomads who
wander aimlessly from one job or career to another; they are just overwhelmingly
blessed with an insatiable curiosity and the hunger to keep learning. With an
agenda to broaden their horizons, they always explore new intellectual worlds
and break into different related or unrelated career frontiers. These people
are usually knowledgeable in several things and can pursue their endeavours
successively or concurrently.
Multipotentiality has its roots
in renaissance humanism, a movement that was birthed in Europe (precisely
Italy) in the 16th century. Renaissance humanism centred on
fostering broad-based literacy of the citizenry by encouraging the study of
humanities: grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and moral philosophy. Extensive
scholarship was sought in all intellectual terrains and people developed skills
and capacities in all areas of knowledge. In the medieval times, the
Renaissance man was seen as that individual who was highly educated and adept
in a wide variety of subjects and careers. Aristotle, Rene Descartes, Leonardo
Da Vinci, Karl Marx, Maya Angelou, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Steve
Jobs and Richard Branson are some perfect examples of multipotentialites.
The problem multipotentialites face
in this part of the world is that the society is accustomed to the idea of one
person-one career. The expectation is to specialise in one field, especially a
field where there is an assurance of job security and money-making
opportunities. There is little emphasis on intellectual pursuit for the sake of
societal impact, personal development and fulfilment. So for a
multipotentialite who has interests in many careers or knowledge in many
fields, such a person is labelled a career-jumper; the no-focus-jack-of-all-trade-master-of-none
individual. The society believes it is an anomaly to aspire to be several
things in life; therefore the multi-gifted is pressured into choosing a single
career. Consequently, depression and a lack of fulfilment set in and the world-changing
contribution a multipotentialite could have made in other fields is
deterred.
But who says you have to choose
one calling? In this rapidly changing
world of today, the talent and creativity of a multipotentialite is needed for
survival. While the specialist is the one with a depth of knowledge and
expertise in a chosen field, the multipotentialite is the one with a breath of
knowledge in several fields. Good teams always have the best of both worlds.
This piece was inspired by Emilie Wapnick’s Ted Talk.
Adedapo Adebajo
A strategic planner, a
researcher, a writer, a musician, a sociologist, a thinker, an aspiring
academic and he still aspires to be many other things.
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