The deeper you go into a topic, the more you’ll discover. On the other hand, if you stay shallow, you discover less. Staying shallow lets you try more things, but the payoff is small because you learn a little, enjoy it briefly, and then move on. The gratification is nothing like what comes from going deep and building real mastery.
Cooking is a simple example. If you are a beginner and you make a recipe one weekend, you will probably have fun. You eat something good and you feel proud of it. But if you stop there, you never learn why it worked or how the flavors came together. If you keep cooking, learn techniques, understand ingredients, and explore flavor combinations, you start to own the craft. You can eventually cook something great without a recipe and you appreciate a meal at a deeper level. The first approach is fine, but the second offers much more.
Recently, I have been frustrated by how shallow most of my hobbies have been. In the last few years, I have tried learning Hebrew, blogging, chess, birding, leather crafting, woodworking, game development, programming side projects, playing with hardware, pickleball, guitar, candle-making, and gardening. I have touched all of them, but I have not gone deep on any. The only exception is running, which I have committed to for 5 years now. I've gained depth that has transformed into a lifestyle I love, and so I want more of that (I can only run so much). But committing to another hobby feels like losing the rest, which creates a strange kind of FOMO. I feel like I am missing out by not sampling everything, but I am also missing out by never committing to something fully.
While thinking of a solution, I came up with the idea of setting a New Year’s resolution to pick one thing and stick with it for a year. Two problems came up right away: 1. Waiting for the new year makes no sense. If I want to commit, I should start now. 2. A full year feels too big. I cannot bring myself to commit for that long without feeling that sense of FOMO.
Instead, I am going to commit to shorter periods of focus. Two weeks to a month for each hobby. During that time, I will go deep and devote all my free time to it. If I want to continue after the window ends, that is allowed and encouraged because that means I am getting something valuable from the depth.
This also fits life. I have a few trips coming up, which means woodworking and gardening are out. So instead, I'm going to focus on writing by participating in Advent of Writing, where I will write for 24 days in a row beginning today (Dec 1, 2025).
I hope these short, intense commitments give me the benefits of depth while letting me keep variety in my life. Not all in forever, but all in long enough to matter.
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