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I love the enthusiasm of new Pluralists.  Those who join the Pluralists Club – and those who talk to me about it prior to committing – are full of ideas and excitement.  Their brains are firing away in all directions, they’re exploring a great wide range of interesting new options, they’re completely ready to jump into a new life.

No!  I don’t mean quitting your Pluralist life but I have been thinking about all the things I do and have done and I’m wondering about whether I should put some of them aside.

It’s amazing how our commitments stack up, incrementally, until we realise that every moment of the day is accounted for.  It’s so easy to agree to things, to take on a ‘little’ project, to add one day a month (it’s only a day!).  It’s easy to get involved in a discussion, have strong views, feel passionately about something, only for it all to translate into an obligation we slightly resent. 

There are many common themes amongst the conversations I hear at Pluralist Club events but the word I probably hear the most is ‘time’.  Time to do all our work, time to fit in meetings, time to research new projects … time always seems to be in short supply.

However, there are also occasions when time is our enemy in the opposite way.  We rush about making arrangements and plans, only to find that other people aren’t ready.  We believe that we have got organisations involved, only to find that their decision-making processes are glacial, leaving us high and dry.  The more people and companies involved in a project there are, the longer the chain gets and the slower everything becomes.

You would think that tunnel vision or single-mindedness would be incompatible with the Pluralist lifestyle but in my experience it is in fact a vital component of a successful portfolio career – the trick is to have several tunnels.

I rather like the way that ‘resilience’ is a noun that applies to both people and materials in similar ways.  ‘The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness’ and ‘the ability of a substance to spring back into shape; elasticity’ (Oxford English Dictionary).  Resilience is a quality we all need but particularly if we are going to put ourselves out there and offer ourselves up for new roles or experiences.