Don't Put All Of Your Love Into One Basket

"I'm going now honey", he said.  "  Okay, enjoy your game", she said.

"I'm leaving now for my Bridge club dear".  "Bye Bye, have fun", he said

Sound familiar?  These oft duplicated exchanges are commonplace and certainly healthy ones.  But let them go too far, and they may signify unhealthy runaway life styles which are better avoided.

If you have ever started a project in the workshop or began reading something of great personal interest and suddenly realized several unaccounted for hours had  gone by, you  have  experienced the first warning sign of "guilty of putting all your love into one basket".

I had a close acquaintance who perfected a talent for producing wood decoys.  Much of his time was spent in his basement workshop and he constantly complained that he had little time for anything else.  This is a typical result when one is guilty of our subject violation.

There is a simple direction to follow if we are to avoid this  infraction. "Forced Diversification" is the answer.  I accentuate "forced" because of the difficulty in replacing one love fixation with another.  As difficult as it may be, however, the interests churned up by true diversification could bring to light other activities equally worthy of one's attention.

The broadening of focus may well serve to expand horizons not previously contemplated.  Of course, the prime objective of overcoming the results of our misdemeanor (implying, of course, that it is not a felony) is to avoid or minimize the exclusionary effect that our activities have had on our  close circle of family and friends.  It is important that we avoid aggravating the effect by merely stuffing more exclusionary interests into the same basket, thus negating the diversification affect.

Just as I thought I had the problem licked, I realized that I had infringed on an already perfected concept:

                "JACK  OF ALL TRADES, MASTER OF NONE"

The net result of this study is a move to adopt a new rule:
             
                "VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE"

Come to think of it, neither rule is really new, is it?  All routes lead to the dreaded accumulation of toys and exponential growth of the "TOO LONG TO DO LIST".


ps. The compilation of true facts in refutation of the felonious attack on our November, 1963 historic depiction (From the Archives May, 2013) blog is ongoing and I assure you that the prevaricator shall be subjected to his or her just deserts at the appropriate time, even to the obviously cheap brand he or she was nipping at the time of the crime. The wheels of justice move slowly, but with certainty.