When I was little I remember thinking poorly of my friends that always picked up new hobbies or sports. At the time I felt it was more worthwhile to stick to one and follow it through. But more and more I’ve started to think that having a range of different interests such as this is better in many regards.

Even if you are to stick to one thing, you have to have some level of ability in it to continue, which isn’t always easy, and you also have to be better than a lot of other people. This makes it hard to maintain, and means eventually you’ll probably need to find something else.

This isn’t true in all cases of course, for example chess or something in which you use your brain, or something creative like art or photography. But I imagine using the same medium will get a bit boring after a while, and it’s fun to experiment anyway. Experimentation is the first part of the creative process. Plus experimenting in multiple media gives you different insights and skills you can incorporate to be even more creative.

When it comes to sport, playing different sports usually has a net positive effect on the sport of choice. For example, football can help you with ball handling and co-ordination skills that are useful in almost any other ball sport. Not to mention developing different muscle reflects or becoming more flexible can help in ways such as injury prevention.

Which is why I don’t understand that Japanese schools typically only allow students to do one club activity. It would be great if you were born for the club, but that’s definitely the minority. It would be great if there was more promotion of cross-mediums, it’d make for better rounded people.