Should I put all my eggs in one basket?

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, or… maybe you should.

This came up in a conversation with my dad about applying for grad school. Naturally, being a parent, he ventures for me to create failsafes and backups and to not overcommit to any one ambition or goal. Now of course, this is not new wisdom by any means; this can be traced all the way back to Cervantes in Don Quixote.

“It is the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket.” - Miguel Cervantes

If we imagine the eggs are little parts of ourselves, the hours we spend in a day or the actions we take, The argument is completely sound. Don’t pour all your effort into one specific avenue of your life, because if it fails, you fall apart. You are less likely to get burned by your decisions by balancing ambitions across various goals and not over investing yourself.

Although the image of me losing all my money or hitting rock bottom is fairly good reason to abide by the saying, there is a small narcissistic part of myself that can’t help but think that by not putting all my eggs in one basket im admitting defeat. If I can’t even believe in myself that I can achieve my goal and need to create backups, there is no way I can ever achieve what I set out for. I am certainly not the first person to think like this.

“Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.” - Andrew Carnegie

While this does a lot better at capturing how I feel, something I didn’t consider is that these eggs are only so many. For every egg I place into the basket of working towards my goal, is an egg that could have been placed hanging out with my friends, pursuing my hobbies, getting enough rest; all things that require little parts of myself as well. And finally, I think this is what my dad was getting at.

I have no intention of living life with the assumption that I am going to fail, I have no intention of not giving myself the best opportunity to succeed. But at the same time, I feel comfort knowing that even if I did fail, I have people I can rely on, and routines I can fall back on. So maybe don’t pull all your eggs in one basket.

P.s. I realize this is just a convoluted way of preaching balance in life