special interests vying for your attention

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This is difficult for me to explain so please bare with me.

I have two very special interests and in many ways they are quite compatable and similier. However, they have their unique differences.

In many ways it would be true to say that the words adherence and even devotion are very appropriate words to use here when it comes to my two special interests.

However, I have found that it is too overwhelming to have them both operating at the same time. So when one is active, the other is in quiet mode. Over the years I have noticed that what causes the movement from one special interest to another is when I feel depressed. It's like, the special interest seems not to make me happy, so I'll devote my interest to the one that is in quiet mode. This move is a conscious and a well thought through action and often comes with a sense of shame that I have been disloyal.

I have mindfully and compassionately watched this
alternating of devotion to my two special interests over many years and was curious if this resonates with anyone here.

I would like to ask, what makes your special interests special for you?

Do you too have competing special interests vying for your attention?

Wishing you all well,

Chris.

In the 1960s I was given a test in school called I believe the Kuder preference test. The Candid Camera TV show I believe once did a show where they told children that the results of their test showed that they should be a shepherd. The children were mostly ambivalent but fearful of what their parents would say.

The Kuder test was supposed to clarify what vocational preferences a child might have. If they scored below 30 in a particular area, it was supposed to mean that they were disinterested or unsuited to that filed. If one had a score of over 70, it was supposed to mean that was a field the child would do well in. I scored over 70 in all the areas so I feel that such measurement was not very helpful.

Managing several special interests can be difficult. I once had an employee that had worked in an environment where he only had one task at a time. I told him I was going to give him 15 tasks and prioritize them for him such that he would work on the highest priority first until he was waiting on parts or had encountered some other obstacle that would take time. During the interval, he could then proceed to work on the second highest priority and so on.

I have found prioritization to be most helpful in dealing with multiple special interests.

I had that for a while but one thing "won" my attention more than something I had as my special interest for five or more years and now I'm struggling because so many people I know came to associate the one interest with me and while I don't think I could ever "hate" it or lose all interest in it, I have a new one and I've met some nice people online who also are into it. My problem is trying to get people to see that I can like more than one thing and also that my newer interest is perhaps more interesting (for lack of a better word) to me at the moment. I also feel like comments from people such as "You still like ..... right?" or "How come you seem to be watching ..... more than ..... now?" bother me and I don't really know why.

I do think people can have multiple special interests though and a lot do and there are also others that have maybe only one but there isn't anything wrong with having a few.

When I was doing engineering, I did better if I wasn't working as a handyman, because both jobs taxed the same brain areas. Generally, I switch between interests according to very minor opportunities to communicate about them.

As above, I can only really focus on one interest at a time. So they tend to be in a rotation - the current one which absorbs most of my free thinking time, the back up one which I think about less often but still retain some focus on and then the others that I hardly think about at all. As times goes on they change position and the primary one can be relegated to back up or even go to the bottom of the pecking order.

As regards what causes the order to change then this is either down to thoughts that pop into my head for no discernable reason or reading posts on various on line forums I subscribe to relating directly to them.

Some remain dormant for years, suddenly reactivate and absorb me for a few months and then just as quickly become dormant again. Others remain close to my thoughts so rotate quite frequently.

These interests are an important thing to me and key to me controlling my anxiety and keeping life in perspective.

Yes, I'm forever being tantalised by all the interests I want to pursue but can't because of the interest that currently has my attention. I hate putting an interest down when I can see that it has more for me to do with it. The trouble is, I want it all but life is too short. I'm sure I'd be happier if I could just let something go, but I just can't do that without feeling really annoyed. I know life will never be perfect, and I've known that for years, but I still can't help feeling really pissed off that it can't be so.

Can anyone tell me why I don't get notifications of replies any longer?

^
Have you checked your junk mail folder? Sometimes the email provider goofs and blocks them. It's infuriating when they stop, once you've got to rely on them.

I wish I had the “attention” to have “special interests.”

I have two main interests as well, and will focus on one for as long as it takes to see the task I’m working on through(this can take weeks, and sometimes months). I feel no guilt going from one to the other, so long as what I started out doing, gets completed. I need to see an end result from all that work. I’ve experienced what you mentioned, about feelings being altered, with anxiety/sadness/depression or something throwing life into turmoil, and not being able to engage in a hobby/interest for a long time due to having life turned upside down for a bit.

Generally, I feel excited over upcoming plans to do this or that interest/hobby-wise. Hobbies are the only thing that I can rely on to give me that same buzz of excitement and satisfaction every time. It’s consistent. Nothing comes close.

^ Mine's Microsoft, which usually does a good job of filtering out junk. I don't mind a junk folder as such, as it usually catches wrongly-condemned emails. There are other useless folders that Microsoft creates in the hope of getting me to play their stupid "games," which fails. Some don't remove in any simple way - there are technical workarounds but it seems they can be so confusing that people occasionally end up deleting something the want to keep, which then can't be restored. I normally access it through Thunderbird anyway, to avoid using Microsoft's horrible website as such, but to set up filtering rules I sometimes have to go there, and every time I do, the experience gets worse. What I've seen of Yahoo doesn't entice me to get involved with it. It's a stupid name for a start.

audio restoration takes up just about all my available time.