Learn one thing for a year

There are an infinite number of things to learn and a finite amount of time in which to learn them. Instead of despair, I feel encouraged by this fact.

If I could only learn one thing in the next year, what would it be? This question is bouncing around my head this week. The lack of physical freedom of movement means more time to sit and think. Which means time to sit and learn. For a lot of this, this has manifested in “what hobby do I want to pick up?” But, I think there is a lot more here than a hobby. A dedicated effort to learn something. To concentrate on one thing and obsess over it.

I gravitate towards learning something, to picking up a new skill, but maybe doing something deliberately unproductive with my free time would be more educational. I feel a lot of self-imposed pressure to make the most of the time and constantly be doing more. I think this is a good thing, but it does lead me to think of many things — to multi-task and stretch — instead of simplifying and obsessing.

It is hard to pick one. But the liberation in locking in one choice will help (?) deal with the paradox of choice. If I can commit to one thing and truly commit, then the push and pull of other distractions will diminish. And, hopefully I learn so much about one thing that I will be stunned at how much I didn’t know.

The paradox of choice still comes into play in picking one thing though…