so what do you do for fun?
the dreaded question
I’ve been thinking a lot about who I want to be post-college; I’m not a student anymore and as a result, my sense of identity has been challenged. This is one of those universal experiences that everyone seemingly goes through, yet it doesn’t necessarily make the transition any easier. My strategy for avoiding the ever-consuming question of who the hell am I has been to throw myself into new hobbies left and right.
I’m no stranger to trying new things, it’s a quality of mine that I’m generally proud of. Most recently, I’ve started this blog. Obviously, writing is not a foreign beast to me, but writing for an audience, albeit a small one, is not something I’m overly fond of. My main challenge for myself when it comes to the blog is to share it with people in my life, no matter how nervous that makes me. I want to grow into being the type of person that does not shy away from people, and I think this is a healthy way to stretch that muscle, so to speak.
Hobbies, or any activities that you elect to participate in without obligation, are so important to building a sense of self, yet I don’t think people engage in finding new ones nearly enough. I’m not immune to this, I often find myself blanking when someone asks what I do for fun. But that’s why I’ve spent the months following my graduation to try and figure out my answer to that question. Typically I say oh you know, I like to read, cook, listen to music… and I always feel a bit embarrassed by not only my lack of items in that list, but also the fact that some of those things I don’t even do on a daily basis*. I don’t think I’m alone in that feeling, and I am not sure what stops us from engaging in the activities we know will bring us joy. Why do I choose to watch Lost instead of read my book? Doom scroll Instagram instead of write? And even scarier: does having a short list of hobbies make me a worse person?
Without the time commitment of classes, I’ve been reengaging in the things I enjoy. I force myself to read, even when my brain wants to reach for my phone. Side bar: I’m aware that I sound a bit middle aged when I curse the phone addiction, but it really is the bane of my existence. I make the effort to cook something at least twice a week. I go for outings in my favorite parts of the city to shop every week. I also try to find new things I can add to my list. I tried baking — hated it. I tried knitting — got bored. I tried jump roping — jury’s still out but I think I enjoy it. I watch more movies, listen to Spotify’s recommended music mixes, read new genres, and generally make an active effort to do the things I say I want to. It is occasionally exhausting, but I’ve noticed a huge difference in my sense of self when I try to embody the type of person I want to be. Even that — the person I want to be — is still fuzzy for me, but I know that I want to be a person that is present in the world, and I think I’m getting there.
Being thoughtful about what activities you engage in, the people you spend time with, and the things you consume is hard at first. Or at least, it is for me. I sometimes get the romantic notion of something mixed up with the reality of it. For example, reading Tolstoy is cooler in my head than the experience of it is. So how to do I find new things to do? It helps me to think about the people I admire and try their hobbies on for size. I didn’t expect myself to love yoga but my friend in high school worked at a studio and so I went to yoga classes daily for about a year. And loved it. It was the same thing for swimming, or rock climbing, or boxing, or any of the things I’ve tried for awhile and eventually grew tired of. There’s certain things, such as reading, that have withstood the test of time and will remain a passion of mine for years to come, but I enjoy the process of trying something new for awhile, learning what I can from it, and moving on if it doesn’t quite fit anymore.
So here’s a list of the lessons I’ve learned in my years of trying new things. I hope I can come back to this list when I feel uninspired.
01. It is going to be uncomfortable at first, and most likely you’re not going to be good. It’s uncomfortable for me to send this blog to my friends, I wasn’t very good at jump roping the first time I did it, I wasn’t fast when I joined cross country, my first sourdough was terrible, the list goes on. I’ve just had to accept that the barrier to entry for gaining a new skill is that you’ll feel like an idiot.
02. If you dread doing it after 3 weeks, give up. No point in forcing something you don’t enjoy. No one has a gun to your head telling you to love crocheting, if you don’t, give up!
03. Let yourself enjoy the process. i.e, notice your improvement! If you can’t celebrate the small wins, like finishing a book for the first time in awhile, you won’t be able to motivate yourself to continue.
04. If it’s something you liked as a kid, try it out again. When I was younger I loved, loved, loved to swim, so I bought a new suit and swam everyday for 4 months. It was great, until the UW pool has a mechanical failure. Fingers crossed for my eventual return to the pool. But younger ev was on to something, and it’s about time I revisit the things that brought me joy when I was barely sentient.
05. Consistency is more important than the duration. When I’ve showed up for the things I want to prioritize, even for 5 minutes, I always feel better than if I didn’t try at all. Sometimes committing an hour to something feels like climbing a mountain, but who cares if you only read like 2 pages. At least you showed up.
I used to think that when boiled down, hobbies are just the things we do when we don’t have to be at work. But after giving it some thought, I think they’re much more than that. The free time we have is precious, and I know that as we age, we somehow end up with less and less of it. So what we choose to do with that time is important, perhaps way more important that I once gave it credit for. I realized that, without meaning to, I rehearsed an acceptable answer to so what do you do for fun and stopped giving it much thought. I think we all do this, to some degree, and I don’t necessarily think it is a bad thing. But when we stop being intentional about the time we have, if we’re lucky to be able to, I think we stop growing up. And I don’t have any intention of doing that just yet.
Knowing all of this, however, doesn’t seem to fix my problem. I still seem to shy away from things that are too time consuming. The bad news is, most things that are worthwhile require dedication and time. And the towering pile of things I need to balance: work, gym, a social life, alone time, checking in with family, feeding myself, keeps growing and growing and sometimes I get scared they’ll all fall on top of me if it gets too much. Sadly, I don’t think I have a solution to this yet. Sometimes it’s all you can do just to keep yourself alive and kicking.
In conclusion, exploring new ways to spend your time is a worthwhile effort, even if it feels hard. Here’s to trying. And here’s to hoping the trying pays off eventually.
I hope this wasn’t too preachy, I’m certainly not an authority on this topic. But I’d like to think I’m learning how to answer the so what do you do for fun? question, slowly but surely.
xoxo, ev