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Ecclesiastes 9:10
Basically, do the best work you can at whatever it is you need to do. In the end none of it matters.
First, have you asked yourself why you want to be an expert in many things? If it is just to know things, then it doesn't matter; just keep learning until you can't anymore. If it is to apply the knowledge to something, then you can use that fact to determine how much utility over time the knowledge of each thing would have, and focus on the greatest first.
> First, have you asked yourself why you want to be an expert in many things? Not the OP, but here's my answer. I want to be able to win arguments. If I debate the merits of an economic proposal with you, and you say, "Sure, and what are your qualifications, exactly? Do you have a PhD in economics?", I want to be able to say, "Yes, I do have a PhD in economics, actually", or "I have read over 490 books about economic…
EDIT: to expand on this, the smartest person I ever knew (the late Justin Corwin. Maybe someone here also knew him) would sit quietly during arguments until someone asked his opinion. Even if you got something wrong he wouldn't correct you unless he knew it would help you. He didn't lord shallow facts over people like many others do and his knowledge went deeper than you could explore with mere discussion. After knowing someone like this It has forever changed how I evaluate people's intelligence. Some intelligent people are not at all concerned about winning arguments and it's extremely refreshing.
Have you made a list of how you’d like to spend your time each week? Over years and decades, the time devoted to learning adds up!
Ultimately, finding one's focus is the hardest and most rewarding part of life.
You can't be an expert in many things. Be an expert in one thing + know a little of more other things
I'll give a different perspective: trust your gut feelings! In Emotional Intelligence, the author Daniel Goleman[1] writes
> [Some of life's big decisions] cannot be made well through sheer rationality; they require gut feeling, and the emotional wisdom garnered through past experiences. Formal logic alone can never work as the basis for deciding whom to marry or trust or even what job to take; these are realms where reason without feeling is blind.
It seems like you are already aware that you don't have enough time to learn everything, there's just too much options to choose from! Perhaps a better approach is to rely on your experience, trust that you will make a good enough decision, and learn how to be comfortable with making choices that are not necessarily optimal, but close. There's a reason for the saying: perfect is the enemy of good!
“The wise man is one who, knows, what he does not know.” ― Lao Tzu
This is not to say "give up". But it is saying that you need to "give up" the idea and you will find peace.