Absolutely agreed. A corollary to these points has been something I've been coming to terms with for the last 2 years or so, which is the idea of not spreading

Absolutely agreed. A corollary to these points has been something I've been coming to terms with for the last 2 years or so, which is the idea of not spreading oneself to thin by continually trying things they're unprepared to commit to; while there are practically endless opportunities for inspiration, consumption, expressing creativity, or learning, it's probable that if they're worthwhile, they require a certain amount of immersion, and it's much easier to be excited about something than it is to shift anything else in your life out of the way to truly involve yourself with a new one. New hobbies and skills have a cost beyond their price. You're ready to learn to skateboard when you're 10 years old because fitness doesn't really matter, consequences don't really matter, and there's nothing else really competing for your attention. Same with Baldur's Gate. But you're not necessarily empowered to do either, someone else has to buy you the thing to get started. Later on, you become empowered to buy anything in your budget, but the liar in you pretends that you're actually in a position to learn to do it, even though the value it provides is tenuous at best. So you buy the skateboard because you've spent 10 years of adult life getting fat and increasing your investments, and today is the day to do something you literally need no other commitments on the calendar for, because you saw your buddy still does from time to time, not realizing that the purchase is the most trivial aspect and actually it'll take 5 hrs a week for a year before your core muscles can even keep you upright. The skateboard goes into storage, and you go back to whatever you've always done. By appreciating that any given thing takes a lot of work, you can better prepare yourself for the real practice of doing it, and reduce the likelihood that a new prospect will be a flash in the pan. You'll need at least the ability to allocate the time and money, because you'll need reps, and reps take commitment. Reading the book on Postgres internals is very unlikely to be valuable if you haven't ever heard of a database, have no use for one, or aren't a technical person of any kind, and you don't become one by buying it and putting it on your kindle for that one long flight. That said, it's easy to become too conservative, and you need to figure out when something that you have committed to has declined in significance or is demanding more than it produces in reward, at which time you should start considering what else you might do.