What do you desire ?
Money and wealth? Honor and pride? Authority and power? Love and pleasure? Or something that transcends all of these? Maybe you want everything?
Whatever your desire in life is, you can achieve it with enough motivation, sacrifices and willpower, or at least come close to your goal. In the seventies, who would have said that Neil Armstrong would land on the Moon in 1969? People to this day consider it a feat that we cannot reproduce today. What could be the reason behind this, and what made it possible at that time?
I want to believe that NASA's will to land the first human on the Moon was strong enough to manifest itself. That’s why Apollo 11 was a success. Or think about how the Manhattan Project sought a weapon strong enough to dominate all its enemies (cf. Oppenheimer).
So, how intense is your desire? What makes you wanting money : To be strong? To find the love of your life? To be happy? The same question shaped in different forms.
If you cannot answer this question, maybe your desire wasn't intense enough. Maybe you are just the by-product of the standards imposed by the society you live in. Or maybe your subconscious picked it by default so that you have a purpose in your life . Here is the good thing: Homo sapiens, by definition, are a surprisingly adaptable species. You can learn to love or want anything if you put enough time and consideration into it.
One would be surprised by how fun some mundane hobbies are once you invest enough time in them: fishing, swimming, drawing, writing, sports, etc... Every activity has three phases you cannot escape:
First phase: the discovery phase. You are completely new to the domain, and everything you do or see is exciting.
Second phase: you are now more or less familiar with the concepts of your activity. You enter a difficult stage where everything seems repetitive and boring. You no longer see beginner gains, and you are expected to raise your level.
Third phase: you have mastered all the basics, and you are comfortable with your skills. This is where the fun starts.
Most people stop at the end of the first phase or in the middle of the second phase at best, because they do not find the courage or the wisdom to invest time and energy without seeing immediate returns — or at least a certainty that this investment will yield results.
If I told you: “You have to play violin one hour every day for three years, and you may or may not start producing a decent sound,” would you still embark on the journey?
This leads to another issue. I often find myself asking this question: “I am willing to invest my time in a skill, but which one?” Maybe when I was 16, I was willing to invest in being a good left back. But now that I am 25, I find that rather a bad investment. With limited resources at my disposal now, I have to pick wisely how to invest my time.
The lowest-risk strategy — the one most people adopt — is to invest a little time in many skills, but without delving deeply into any of them: Jack of all trades, master of none. So, what is the best strategy to adopt (for me at least)?