A multipotentialite, as defined by Emilie Wapnick of puttylike.com, is a “person with many interests and creative pursuits”.
If you are one, you can’t fathom why you need to do only one thing or become one specific identity.
You always want to do everything and are likely to fall out of love with something as easily as you loved it.
You also have a difficult time identifying with one speciality and telling people exactly what you do.
Does this sound like you?
Welcome to the multipotentialites club!
I for one can’t begin to explain how happy I feel to have come across this term, and especially, the Puttylike website.
To find out there are others of my kind out there and that it’s not insane to have a difficult time explaining what I want to do, what I do or who I am.
In all honesty, I feel like someone who just discovered a new planet they hoped existed but didn’t know for sure.
It’s what you’d call an Aha moment; discovering you’re not crazy to want to be everything.
And it all came about after 2 days of online research, fueled by a recent all-too-familiar difficulty.
Here’s the story.
I was at a small social gathering when the group’s Chair asked us to describe ourselves using one word. Based on past experience, I knew doing so was going to be an uphill battle.
I’ve never been really good at one-word descriptions. Not for what I do, how the food at a restaurant was, and certainly, not who I am.
So with every introduction and the realization that my turn was nigh, my heart started beating faster. About 5 or more options sprang to mind, and still, I couldn’t pick a winner.
Somehow, all the words that came to mind described a portion of who Selipha is but not enough to cover my whole self. I became plagued with indecision, anxiety, and the fear of not being able to accomplish such a simple task.
And then everyone’s eyes turned to meet mine. I could feel them begging for that magical word. I knew I had to say something. And I had to say it fast. Otherwise, the discomfort was going to get worse.
But I still couldn’t pick a word.
So I settled for two words vague enough to avoid a follow-up question or comment. And it did the trick.
Did I complete my task?
You be the judge.
The following day I couldn’t get that moment out of my mind. I thought of all those feelings I experienced in a span of a few seconds and knew enough was enough.
Something had to be done. A discovery had to be made, no matter the consequences.
And so I embarked on a search to find out why everyone seemed to have it easy and I didn’t. 2 days later, I came across the term “Multipotentialite”.
That was earlier today, October 11, 2017.
A writer I had been following for a while had it on his Facebook “Intro” section. I wondered why I hadn’t seen it before. But then I remembered I hadn’t been looking.
So I dug deeper into the term and Puttylike answered all my questions. To get rid of any suspicions, I took the “Are you a multipotentialite?” quiz.
And the results were everything I hoped they’d be; a strong pat on my back saying “You’re not alone”.
From discovering this simple word, I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that you don’t have to specialize in one area as everyone tells you to.
That you can succeed in everything you’re passionate about, as long as you don’t lose your mind trying to belong.
And I don’t have to feel guilty anymore.
Do you know why? Because I’m no longer alone in what I thought was one of my greatest failures.
I now have other multipotentialites to think about, a new identity to get accustomed to, and renewed confidence.
I also know it was never a failure. It was just one of my peculiarities.
As Ursula K. Le Guin writes in her 1974 book, The Dispossessed, “There’s a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.”
Being that I’m still in my twenties, I choose to make my newfound title a virtue.
And by doing so, I can finally describe myself in one word.
Multipotentialite!
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Are you a multipotentialite? You can take the free quiz here.
Are you a highly sensitive person (HSP)? Take this free quiz.
Want to browse available HSP resources? Go here.
