Jack of all trades, master of none

Yes you read it right jack of all trades and master of none — this is a famous figure of speech which means that you are dabble (knows something something) in many things but don’t have expertise over a single one.

I used to hate this line because everyone around me said that you can’t be great until you have an expertise or have some kind of mastery over a thing. You should select your domain and try to work your ass off to become a master over that domain but for me it turned out that life doesn’t want me to do mastery over one thing, as I have tried so many things in my life but never achieved success over any one thing. Many times I was depressed just because I did not have mastery over one thing.

But recently I have read an article on a website from David Cole (Quora designer) that this famous line is a myth. “Learning isn’t a zero-sum activity,” Cole writes:

The central counter-argument here is that any learning comes with opportunity cost. Learning Python might very well take up time that you would otherwise use for studying, say, product management.
This is true, in theory. But in practice, most designers I know, including myself prior to joining Quora, are not learning at their maximum rate.
I have spent much of my career solving the same design problems over and over again with no substantive personal growth to show for it. I don’t think my situation is unique.

Would you rather carve a door 1% better than you did last year, or learn how to build the rest of the house in the same amount of time?

You don’t know which tool you will be using so collect these tools as long as you can and don’t just sit there and limit yourself. Push yourself because growth takes place at the end of your comfort zone. People nowadays are trapped into their work so much that they don’t want to grow. They just want their life to go as it is because they get comfortable at what they are doing. If you can do it comfortably then just remember that your growth has stopped.

If Elon Musk had limited himself to focus on PayPal at that time then world might have never seen the other great discoveries of him.

Always remember that if you are feeling uncomfortable at doing something that means you are growing.

Now, I suppose it’s time I should put down my pen.