A few years ago, I read a book that started out with a woman remembering the day of panic she had at 13 years old, when she realized that time never stops.

Two thoughts I had after reading this were that one, life does go by quickly… so why waste some of that precious time worrying about how quickly it flies? And two, she’s too young to be worried already! I surely wasn’t panicky about time as an early teenager, and I thought I never would be.

Well, here I am, feeling like every day goes by, hardly giving me a chance to get half of what I want to read completed, people seen or papers written. Maybe the 13-year-old was benefitted by her early revelation after all.

The concept that every second of every day we have turns into history is a baffling one, and if I’m already overwhelmed by the amount of amazing articles, books, documents, etc. that I want to read now, what will people do in the future when there is three times the history?

So much already gets looked over, and there is an infinite amount of years ahead of us. How are we supposed to choose? And I’m not even talking about books anymore; how do we choose what to do with our limited amount of time here?

I made the mistake in high school of not choosing a narrow enough focus in many areas, but especially in track and field. Narrowing my activities down to just track in the spring was a difficult task in itself, not to mention choosing between the multiple events within the sport.

Because I grew up in a fairly small town, each coach wanted as many athletes as he or she could get. Before I knew it, I was a high, long, and triple jumper, and I ran the 100m, 200m, 400m, and 800m runs.

On the plus side, I got to literally run and jump and play with my friends for hours every day. But I wanted to be better than good; I wanted to be the best, and that doesn’t happen when people spread themselves too thin. I was lucky to have so many interests and abilities, but I also wasn’t able to excel as well as I could have had I just picked a couple of related events. There just wasn’t enough time to do them all.

Now, as a senior in college, I’m experiencing many of the same feelings as I did before, only now the dilemmas are more about what I want to read, what I should do for a minor, should I stay in school, what kind of job do I want, should I go to grad school, and if so, for what?? etc. etc. Being interested in sustainability science, languages, working with kids on ELL, naturopathic medicine, animals, creative writing and sports makes me well-rounded, sure. But I want to master all of these passions!

I believe that while versatility is a strong attribute to have, finding a narrower path can lead to higher success. We all define success differently, but in the broad scope of things, I think it’s what will ultimately make us happy. If we want to make a difference and be accomplished, sometimes we have to let other things go in order to build on a focused passion. Maybe I’ll just close my eyes and point…

(Google image)