Always pursue a line of interest

Today, I had started on a course to learn Kotlin, which is used to develop Android mobile applications. And then I had a familiar thought: if I get into Kotlin, but then, after studying for awhile, I lose interest, then all the time spent will have been for nothing. So, should I go ahead with the course or not?

This question is a common catch-22 that the brain gets into. And here is why going ahead with your interest is never wasted time.

First, as I have just stated, the fact that you are pursuing a line of interest is already a positive result. I highly encourage people to follow their interests. I will not say something like "follow your passion", as passion can be a fleeting emotion. So, following your interest is a much safer and more satisfying move.

Additionally, by pursuing the interest, you avoid the inevitable dread of not follow the interest and wondering what it might have led to.

The next positive result of following your interest is that by learning something new, you pave the way for more avenues of thought to open up. There are at least three benefits to this:

1) By continuing to learn new things, you learn how to learn, and it makes it easier to learn the next new thing

2) By learning new things, you will expand your experience, and be able to use experience from one field to aid in another fields, something that focusing on one field lacks

3) By learning new things, you learn about additional general concepts, which you can then apply to other fields and make work in those fields easier

After pursuing your interest, it is possible that you may, in fact, decide to stop that line of interest, which can happen for a variety of reasons. If that is the case, you should feel fulfilled that you followed your interest to the end, and then find another interest to start on. There's a good chance that you either already had more areas of interest, or found new interests along the way.

Do not feel bad about ending a line of interest. If you took it to the limit of your curiosity, then that's as far as you could take it, and you can move on with a light heart.

Finally, there is the best reason for taking on a line of interest: you may actually end up continuing the line further than you imagined. In baseball terms, you can't hit the ball unless you take a swing. Thus, if you don't even try a line of interest, you don't know if you will like it and wish to pursue it further.

In conclusion, if you are worried that pursuing an interest may only end up with you losing interest later, the benefits you will receive by following the interest anyway far, far outweigh not trying it at all.

Go for it!