My Friend’s Startling Realization About Fun
A conversation I've never forgotten
Several years ago, I had a conversation that I’ve never forgotten.
I was at a friend’s brunch, and I ran into someone I hadn’t seen for a long time. She was the mother of a girl in my daughter Eliza’s nursery-school class. I’d always really liked this woman, but while we’d always been friendly, I hadn’t seen her in years. I was really happy to get the chance to catch up.
She and her family had recently been on a skiing trip, and she told me what a great time they’d had.
“Do you ski?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “It’s not my kind of thing.”
“Oh, you should try it!” she said. “It’s a wonderful activity, especially as a family. You’re outside in nature, it’s beautiful, it’s great exercise, it’s a really fun adventure to share.”
“All that sounds terrific,” I answered, “and I’ve tried it. But I’m really uncoordinated, so I’m not good at that kind of physical activity. I really suffer from the cold, so being in the snow doesn’t appeal to me. Plus I dislike handling lots of equipment. It’s a relief to me that my husband has a bad knee! I don’t want to go skiing.”
Our conversation turned to different topics, and after a while, we both started talking to other people.
About thirty minutes later, though, she reappeared at my side.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” she told me in a confiding tone. “I realized…I don’t like skiing.”
Just then, someone interrupted us, so I never did get to follow up on her disclosure.
But I’ve never forgotten it.
It’s fine to join in an activity because other people enjoy it. We all do that. It’s part of family life and group life. I think it was Jerry Seinfeld who said, “There’s no such thing as fun for the whole family.” Sometimes, it can be fun to do something even when you don’t actually find it very fun.
But here’s the thing: We want to be honest with ourselves. Because it’s one thing to say: “I’m bored at the playground, but my son likes it so much, I’ll take him,” or “I don’t really like amusement parks myself, but the rest of my family loves them, so I’ll go to enjoy spending the day together.” It’s quite a different thing to convince ourselves that we enjoy something that we don’t actually enjoy.
If we convince ourselves we’re having fun when we’re really not having fun, we may find that life feels more and more tedious, and we feel more and more drained—but we don’t know why. We don’t realize that we’re not having any fun.
It’s one of my Secrets of Adulthood: Just because something is fun for someone else doesn’t mean it’s fun for you—and vice versa.
Moment of Happiness
Know Yourself Better
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned? There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to happiness. We must know ourselves and what’s right for us, because we can build a happy life only on the foundation of our own values, interests, strengths, and temperament.
Consider the question below. Perhaps it will illuminate a hidden or ignored aspect of your nature.
