My Life as an Octopus: A Generalist Framework for a Richer Life

If you think about where “specialism” came from, it essentially originated from greedy business men who were trying to extract maximum productivity out of workers. It was not designed to enrich life, provide meaningful work, satisfy human curiosity, make you happy, or keep life interesting. It was intended to convert us into diligent worker robots.

Is it any wonder over 80% of employees are “disengaged” at work? Is it any wonder so many of us are bored, stressed, angry, and miserable at our jobs? We’ve reduced work to such a narrow activity, then on top of that, placed upon it the impossible burden of making it the primary means of living a meaningful life. We want it to be our “calling”, our “life’s work”, our “mission” in life, but should it be?

How many of us are paralyzed because we can’t figure out the “one thing” to do with our lives? How many days, months, years even of navel gazing, figuring out what we’re best at, filling out Ikagai diagrams, taking personality tests, going to career coaches, etc are we going to spend trying to find out what the “one thing” is that we can do better than anyone else?

What if we’re asking the wrong question? What if there is no “one thing?” What if your life calling is to explore as many different things as possible? To enjoy as wide a variety of experiences as possible?