In my opinion, optionality is something worth optimising for. This would apply to any domain: optionality in health (i.e. maintaining a base level of fitness so you can jump into most activities, maintaining a healthy diet to stay in shape and improve longevity), social optionality (having a good amount of reliable and trustworthy friends), financial optionality (saving for, and eventually obtaining, financial freedom), skill and career optionality (learning a wide variety of hard and soft skills to enable transition into different roles).
Basically, in absence of any clear direction, take the set of actions which opens more doors than it closes.
I agree with you, and I don’t think our positions are in conflict. I think optionality is worth pursuing, but its ultimately only instrumental. You have to actually choose an option to get value from it. Optionality gives you more options to choose from, and hence a higher likelihood of selecting the best option.
It’s important to explore before you exploit. You will end up with a better spouse if you explore different potential partners instead of settling for the first who walks through the door. Same with your career.