I am currently reading "the Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin..While reading the chapter on making time for fun. She comes across a sadness in her happiness project, sometimes what you find fun, isn't doing what others think is fun. Sometimes this makes us question whether was we like to do for fun is legitimate or not. But she has a rule (a commandment actually), "Be Gretchen". Obviously that is her rule. Mine, is "Be Andrea". I stopped mid sentence inspired to write, so I did, pencil to paper, 1st draft of this blog.
The sadness of the happiness project: finding what you find fun. YOU.
Sometimes we think we need to live our lives like others- we want to find what other do for fun, fun for ourselves. This can often lead us into trying new things in hopes for a positive affect. But what if this constant need to do what others like, what other find fun, leads us into a series of events that we'll eventually come to regret? What if they become what we'll always look back and think "you've made some of the biggest mistakes of your life?"
Some experts saw to look back at what you used to find fun as a child, try them again, you'll probably still enjoy them. I agree....BUT
What if we go back and try to experience what we thought was fun during our most rebellious years. The formative years of our teens perhaps? Those years when our relationships were somewhat frivolous in nature. When our main reason to love someone was their popularity in your group of friends, the colour of their eyes and the choice of their cologne, or how much your parents would disapprove of them?
If we all still based out relationships on the frivolous nature of our youth - the "fun" of it all, how would we all be able to be happy now, to be kind?
In 2009, my relationship with my loving, kind and patient husband suffered. Although there were reasons behind the beginning of the suffering, lack of communication, financial issues, its all about how its handled....well I don't want to rant on that, or make excuses.
When these problems started, I looked to find myself. To find "fun" outside of myself. Looking for what others find exciting and what I ended up realizing later, was harmful to myself and to my relationships.
I know myself, I'll always look back at my mistakes with a sense of regret. I also know that they will always be a part of me now.
This has made me evaluate myself, my marriage, and my friendships in a very analytical (and neurotic) way. I'm a work-in-progress (aren't we all?), but I can honestly say I'm better off. The quality of my relationships far outweigh the quantity of years behind them, the quantity of the mistakes made...quality beats quantity, old cliche wins again.
So while attempting a look into my own happiness, I've realized I'm definitely okay with what I find "fun" and enjoyable, without comparing to others, without feeling like I might be letting some people down.
So for fun, my fun, my pleasure and enjoyment..I love to read (and highlight passages I love that I later write down into a book designated just for this activity), I love to write (even though I might possibly have the worst grammar and no apparent talent for it, sorry blog readers, you probably realized this before me.). I love experimenting in the kitchen. Long conversations (usually completely gossip-free, some habits take a bit longer to kill, human nature and all that) over wine or tea or coffee, especially on the patio, with great friends. "drawing parties", down on the floor, covered in charcoal, randomly dancing, date nights with the hubby, weekend getaways, yearly vacations, conversing with my mom, my dad and having brother/sister dates, going to starbucks to enjoy intelligent conversation and witty banter over a soy chai latte, having lunch before work or drinks after with good friends, painting with my music on, watching my favourite television shows.....etc.
So the sadness in it all, knowing that I will never be anyone but me. So in the long run, its a process...but in the end...its all just happy.
What do you do for fun?
自ら行うデメリットは存在します
8 years ago
sew, read, chase my daughter around the house, and sometimes do nothing! great entry.
ReplyDeleteThanks Melissa, this entry was very freeing for me to write. :)
ReplyDeletevery deep :)
ReplyDeleteare you sure the saddness isn't just that you are regretting the time you spent trying to find those other things fun?
for me, i find anything 'fulfilling' to be fun... whether it is watching a tv show with good character development that inspires me to one day try writing fiction, writing my own words, or reading someone elses (and also writing down the best parts in a book! i'm thinking of transcribing it all into a searchable database - nerd alert!)
the most fun spent outside of myself (all of the above is so introverted, i realise) always involves getting to know someone (sort of like watching those great tv shows) and getting to see how they see the world through their eyes...
funny how difficult this is to do surrounded by loud music and a large crowd, late at night in a dank club - an activity i spent a lot of my youth doing (often, with a certain someone)... but that is where the people were at that time... i guess
we weren't worried about being ourselves, but worried about fitting in (in a unique way, granted)
personally, i like "Andrea" from the "Be Andrea" commandment... and i like her honest, open writing (that is free from grammar evaluation being that it is just a blog!) and i have fun with her because we define fun simlarly
i guess i'm happy about this sort of sadness ;)
-being andie
i too have gone through a lot of friends for this very reason, i start to realise that the people i hang out with really dont want me to be me, they see me as a Eliza from Pygmalion, someone they can change to be who they think would make a good friend...i don't think i need people like this in my life, they're like a cancer that eats away at everything that makes you you until you finally give up the ghost and become someone else
ReplyDeletei remember sitting out back of Erinn Tracey's townhouse with you, erinn and brian donnelly playing name that tune, but by humming or making weird sounds to do the songs that the other people had to guess, that was the real me, odd, quirky, wanting to make others laugh and feel comfortable around me, but at the same time shy...i think you enjoyed it, i think you were being the real you that night, the you that became one of my closest friends for a few years...if it wasnt, and you were being someone else, i apologise for making you feel that you had to be someone else around me...but i do think that no matter what, i would always like you for who you are
scott, that was the real me. and I remember that night. it was fun. I was very lucky to find you in St.Catherines..I may have gone insane if I hadn't.
ReplyDeletehow soon you forget certain key factors in the begging of our friendship my dear stephen!
ReplyDeletewe first met on bme (i seem to think that you had just joined and i stopped by your page and noticed you lived near me so we started talking
i can remember going up to Hamilton with Nikki Zouros and my ex-girlfriend Kelsey's sister Lacey because they wanted to do some sort of research thing at the main downtown library there. you had given me your phone number and told me to call so that we could meet up, even if it was for just a half an hour. i wandered for a long time in a city where i had no idea where i was going. I finally found a phone booth and called you. I remember you telling me to call you saying your name was "Andrea" (clearly a lie...STEVE!) but you always called yourself "Dre" in your posts, so i was really confused about which parts of the Andrea to enunciate, was it, ANdrea, ANDrea or anDREa, i chose the latter (it was actually this initial confusion that made me decide to call you "Steve", "Steve" was a name that brian donnelly and I had decided years ago that we wanted to nickname one of our female friends that and ONLY call them that (we were weird, what can i say...well, not "were" we ARE weird)
so yeah, got the the phone booth, called you, settled on the pronunciation of anDREa (even as i type it and say it in my head it just doesnt sound right to me) talked to you for a minute or two and then asked where you wanted to meet and gave you a rough idea of where i was (because i really would never have been able to navigate myself to anywhere else). you told me you were having dinner, i looked at my watch, it was just past 3pm. so we made plans for you to come down to st.caharines to hang out some time
ReplyDeleteand then, one day, a few months, perhaps as long as a year or so later, you sent me a message saying you were moving to st.catharines in a weeks time and we would hang out the day after you got moved in.
and we did, and when we did, you explained why you were having dinner at 3pm, you told me it was because you didnt want to meet some strage guy you had just met on the internet. while i agreed that this was probably a good thing to keep in practice, i did see the oddness of the fact that when we were hanging out that night in your new apartment on geneva street, that that was the first time we had met in person, or even heard one another's voice other than the brief phone call when i was in hamilton, and i was, on that day, a guy you had just met on the internet
i can also remember other things, like when vanessa and i broke up and i showed up in the lobby of your apartment building with tears flowing as free as tears can flow, down my face, and you just kept hugging me, and telling me that it would be ok, that one day i would find someone who loved me for me...i will never forget that, you have always held a spot in my heart and a place in my mind as a friend, even through all these years when we werent in touch.
THAT, is how we met, you didn't find me in st.catharines, i found you, on the internet, then on the other end of a phone line running through the city of hamilton, then in your apartment on geneva steet, and now, once again, it is I who found you, by searching diligently on peoples pages on facebook for quite a while, knowing that your name had changed and that eventually i'd see the name andrea (although i always hoped i'd find you under the name steve) and there would be a picture of the beautiful woman who was once my best friend in the world, the one person i could talk to about anything without feeling judged or looked down upon
there are times when we werent in touch when i still considered you my best friend, the fact of the matter is that anyone who is ever considered a "best" friend will always be a "best" friend, just as one never truly stops loving someone, no matter what has transpired between them. you were my best friend, and i loved you in a way that a person can only love someone who is a true friend...and, i you still are my best friend, and i still love you the way that a person can only love someone that is a true friend...and of course, you've become even more beautiful than you were back then, i didn't think this could be possible but it is. and i'm glad that I was again, found you
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ReplyDeletejust so you know, that was broken into two parts because it was just too damn long for the post to go through, i had no intention of it being that long when i first started typing it
ReplyDeletealso the "deleted" post is because it decided it would be fun to post the second part twice, my theory is so it could make me type more gibberish into the verification thingie
and of course, there i go, ruining a perfectly heartfelt post by acting like an ass
but, if you were wondering at all, i mean every word i said in that post
hmm also a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes in that long post, i really should've proof read it before i sent it, but of course, the errors work, it shows the proof that what i wrote came from the heart, and that what i said was true, it's odd how sometimes a mistake is proof of a truth isn't it?
ReplyDelete