The difficulty of having too many interests and knowing how to structure life in a meaningful way

As the headline suggests, I have had this trouble for as long as I can remember. How do I know what to do in life when I have so many different interests?
At the same time, many of you, I'm sure, also feel the desire to do something for the world that is engaging, meaningful, and fills you with passion, while also making money.

I'm curious to know if someone recognizes my problem and if so, what did you do to solve it?

What I did was I used permaculture principles in combination with different personal development tools to make my own method to create a structured path forward, and I am really happy with how it turned out. I now have a clear goal ahead and I'm not wasting my time thinking about my future and what to do with my life every day.

I was so pleased, in fact, that I decided to create an online course to help others in the same situation. I know, I should have checked interest before creating a course like this, which took many hours and energy, but at least I feel it was worth it for me, and I'm sure it will be for you if you have the same problem that I had.

So, I would be very curious to know if anyone would be interested in doing what I did, which I describe in an online course over at https://www.Dagazmind.com/course/permaculture-design-your-life/

I set the price to about the cost of a lunch for now, and on top of that a 50% off coupon to all of you reading this. Use "permies-50" in the checkout to activate it. I would highly appreciate any feedback.
If you want to see the introduction video for free and know more about me and the course, you can do so here: https://www.dagazmind.com/lesson/about-your-instructor/
In that video, I tell a bit about myself. If you want to skip it and find the part where I talk about the course itself, it's at 11:45 in the video.

Looking forward to any thoughts. Also, I hope I don't violate any rules in the forum by promoting my course like this.

And I am very curious to know: -what did you do to find your life path?

All the best
Dagar

I guess it is a little late for me to "design my life" at age 64, but I can relate to the premise of "too many interests". I think setting goals with a wide range of time horizons is useful - like what are my goals for today, this week, this month, this year, this decade (after the decade-level goal setting it gets kinda sketchy, imho). Socrates is credited with saying (in ancient greek-speak), "The uninspected life is not worth living" - a saying I learned in high school and have long held dear. So if one sets wise decadal goals, that of course will inform one's yearly goals, and etc.

There is also an old Chinese saying, "when you plan for a year, plant rice; when you plan for a decade, plant trees; when you plan for a century, educate children" - so I try to stay connected with younger folks in some ways - gaming and chatting about it on Discord, blathering in fora like this one where younger minds might find some useful tidbit, and generally trying to be open to conversations. I even did a bit of high school teaching over the years - though a very little of that work is enough to satisfy most sane folk, imho. And planting trees is a very good fit to any decadal plan. A couple of my cacao trees planted in '21 are blooming this year and with luck there will be coffee bush blooms next spring. Banana stalks are HARD work to propagate but new banana plants are popping up all around the place now. All part of the plan.

Cade Johnson wrote:I guess it is a little late for me to "design my life" at age 64...

Those are some good quotes indeed. My favourite one is "focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new". Socrates said that, but not the same Socrates

Why would it be too late to design life at your age, you think?

I like to see life as something that can be built and designed with an intention. That way, everything becomes important. Just like a permaculture farm design. At the same time, having the permaculture lens on ones life also leaves some aspects in the hands of natural processes and letting go of control.

I agree it's good setting different termed goals as you suggest, but that can be a hard thing if the goal setting process ends up being messy and having too many loose ends. Hence the need for a structured method, I thought.

This reminds me of when I first found the forum back in 2016, I read about so many new to me ideas.

I learned so many new things and I too had the difficulty of having too many interests all at the same time.

Learning to ferment the vegetables that  was harvesting.

Learning about plants I had never heard of.

I already had an interest in medicinal herbs though I learned about so many new ones and what the benefits were.

Then came the knowledge of hugelkulture and RMH aka Rocket Mass Heaters.

What a joy it was to read about Wheaton Labs and wanting to go for a visit.

Welcome to the forum!

Now that you have found the forum are you having the same difficulty as I did or is your course helping with all the new found knowledge?

Regarding "having too many interests and how to structure life":

In my adult life I've had a chronic addiction to hobbies. I've gotten better about it in the past few years, but it used to be that every new little thing I learned about I wanted to try doing. I ended up with something like 6-8 activities that could properly be considered hobbies. This is on top of being a dad, husband, full-time employee, homeowner, etc. (I think the first rabbit hole I might have gone down but successfully backed away from "no Ned, you don't have enough time" was banzai trees.)

I am not terribly controlling of how much time I give to each hobby--mainly whatever I'm in the mood to do I do, and I don't feel bad if one falls off for a few weeks or months. But I was curious for a while whether there was any pattern or cycle to it, so I started tracking, in a spreadsheet, how many minutes each day (rounded to the nearest 15) I gave to each hobby.

It turned out there was no pattern, other than if there was some project I wanted to get done, and gave myself a deadline for, then in the days/weeks leading up to that deadline I'd see a spike in time devoted to that hobby.

As for making time for my hobbies in the first place, that sort of happened on its own: I realized I could sit in front of the computer wasting my time (which I still do a bit here and there...like right now) or I could get up and go work at the things I'm interested in, which in turn is a kind of growth and development and feels good, even apart from the finished outcome of the thing itself. So I started learning to do that more and sit in front of the computer less.

Part of that also I think was having more and more kids, which kind of forced me to be more organized, and to think about how to get more out of less time. As a generality I've never met people who have so little availability to do the things they are interested in (video games excepted) as those who have no kids, because they simply haven't learned how to put their time to use effectively.

Ned Harr wrote:Part of that also I think was having more and more kids, which kind of forced me to be more organized, and to think about how to get more out of less time. As a generality I've never met people who have so little availability to do the things they are interested in (video games excepted) as those who have no kids, because they simply haven't learned how to put their time to use effectively.

This!  Our daughter never had kids, never wanted them. She never has time to anything as she is always on the go.

I looked at her facebook page yesterday and she was in Houston at some burger joint.  That is at least a thousand miles from where she lives.

People can make time for the things they want to do.

We went to the vet this morning to take the cat to get her rabies shot and dear hubby commented on how many facebook pages she has.  I only know about one.

Anne Miller wrote:People can make time for the things they want to do.

Yup, that sums it up perfectly!

I never turn down an opportunity to learn something new. You will never have enough time to do everything you want, enjoy the things you love.

Anne Miller wrote:

Now that you have found the forum are you having the same difficulty as I did or is your course helping with all the new found knowledge?

Thank you!
Actually, I'm not that new to the forum, it's just that I lost my old username. I've been around more than a few years...

I think it comes down to embracing your interests but not forgetting your main road ahead. And for me it's been very important to find that main road. It has been frustrating many times to feel such a strong urge to know and do all those things that I know I have the capacity to do, but not be able to becasue of lack of time and money. That's why I wanted to find a way to combine my passion with my income, which I think is something everyone should strive for in some sense.

Robert Ray wrote:I never turn down an opportunity to learn something new. You will never have enough time to do everything you want, enjoy the things you love.

With a homestead, 3 children, a dog and work, it's hard to say that time is enough :)
So for me, it's been essential to narrow down my interests at the moment and really focus my time and energy on the right things to make life work out. I understand that as I get older and the kids fly out, I might have more time to more interests. So that also creates something to look forward to as a positive thing of getting older and seeing the children leave..
The biggest challenge for me has been making the economy work while doing what I love, which is still a work in progress...

Ned Harr wrote:In my adult life I've had a chronic addiction to hobbies.

I can totally relate to your story. I'm exactly the same
And I agree that the life puzzle that comes with having house, homestead, children and work really forces you to use your time more effectively in some way. But when I started working with the methods I used in the course, it also made a big difference for me in setting clearer goals and using time even more efficient. That might sound stressing to some, but to me it took away a lot of mental stress because it got clearar to me also where to focus my thoughts. Before, my thougst where as widespread as my interests, and after they are more focuse on my current goals.

I can relate to "I have way too many interests and not enough time to pursue them all". This is especially hard to do sustainably while having adult responsibilities such as putting food on the table and having to make rent to have a roof over our heads.

Looking back to childhood, I did pursue many of my interests in the summer when I was out of school and it came quite naturally. Part of it is just playing, exploring and wanting to build something for that moment. Grew up shooting the breeze with older cousins, but it just allowed me to pursue interests without pressure.

As an adult, I find myself asking: "how do I turn my interests into something I can offer to the world and be compensated for it?". And honestly, the last part, the compensation part, stopped me from pursing worthwhile interests. Everything I did had to have a ROI before I even began to consider it. That looming thought in the background was antithetical to learning for me. It takes time to figure out a personal system to learn, play, and make money while doing these things.

Folks probably do not realize how time consuming children are until those children leave home to make their own way in life.

I loved mine though I love the new found time ...

Winston Troughton wrote:...This is especially hard to do sustainably while having adult responsibilities such as putting food on the table and having to make rent to have a roof over our heads...
...As an adult, I find myself asking: "how do I turn my interests into something I can offer to the world and be compensated for it?"...... Everything I did had to have a ROI before I even began to consider it. That looming thought in the background was antithetical to learning for me....

That's exactly how it has been for me as well.. And since that has been such a big issue for me, it has also become a way for me to be useful to the world. By teaching myself a way forward and actually overcoming that wall of ROI versus PASSION, I also hope to help and inspire others having the same problem. One of the best keys is acceptance, and seeing the problem as a challenge. Permaculture teaches us to turn problems into solutions, so that's what I'm going to do.

Then if we can accept that what we do must put food on the table, it's going to be worth all the while to find a livelihood which makes me useful, gives me a fair income and let's me do something I feel passionate about. Then we have to prioritize what to do with the rest of our time. And once again, acceptance is key to feel happy, even though time is never enough to dive into all ones dreams. When I feel that way, I think to myself that; maybe one day in the future...