The importance of knowing what you LIKE to do, and then doing it.

A thoughtful reader emailed me a link to a recent Time article, Getting Serious About Happiness. It’s about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, an expert on happiness and “flow.” His book Flow: The Pyschology of Optimal Experience is fascinating.

What interested me most was the following advice by Csikszentmihalyi:

Be attuned to what gives you genuine satisfaction. Although many people assume that popular activities like watching TV are enjoyable, their own reports generally indicate that they feel more engaged, energetic, satisfied and happy when doing other things.

Study yourself. To better understand their own happiness, Csikszentmihalyi says, people should systematically record their activities and feelings every few hours for a week or two….Afterwards, note the high points, particularly, and the low ones. Then try to adjust how you spend time according to your findings.

These underscore the importance of one of my Secrets of Adulthood: “What’s fun for other people may not be fun for you--and vice versa.”

I don’t know why this bit of wisdom is so hard to keep in mind, but it is. It has been a huge struggle for me to recognize the most obvious things about my own likes and dislikes. I only recently acknowledged to myself that I don’t particularly enjoy listening to music, and I’m not very attuned to the pleasures of food. Wine leaves me utterly cold. I don’t like sports. I don’t like mysteries.

I was also in denial about the things I did like. I love, love, love children’s literature. I love making books in all different sorts of ways. I love gathering quotations. I love making the bed in the morning. I’m very interested in the problem of obesity. I can’t read enough about St. Therese of Lisieux. I love extremely floral scents.

The problem for me comes when I wish that I did enjoy things that I don’t really enjoy, or that I have interests that I don’t really have. I have an idea of who I wish I were, and that obscures my understanding of who I actually am. But I’m trying to do a better job of keeping my first commandment: “Be Gretchen.”

For example, an extremely athletic, well-rounded friend of mine said to me, with great enthusiasm, “My idea of a great weekend is when I get outside with my kids for at least two hours before lunch and two hours after lunch.”

Now, that’s great. Healthy, active, family time. Right? Doesn’t that sound terrific?

Well, not really. Actually, I admitted to myself, my idea of a great weekend is when we all lie around reading in our pajamas until mid-afternoon.

Now, maybe that’s not the best way to spend a weekend. Maybe it wouldn’t even make me happy to do that two days in a row. (Not that it’s even possible to do, with the Little Girl.) But that’s the kind of thing I like.

I will, however, add one caveat on the observation that “What’s fun for other people may not be fun for you--and vice versa.”

There are some activities that do universally boost happiness, such as socializing with other people, exercising, being of service to others, mastering and exercising a new skill. But while one person might enjoy learning to hang-glide, another person might enjoy learning to play chess. One person might like to meet friends for coffee, another person might like to join a church choir.

Certain actions form the basis for a happy life, but we all must find for ourselves the most pleasing FORM for these activities to take. And that requires self-examination and honesty.

*
Zen Habits is a blog I like to check out, so I was pleased to be asked to do an interview on "taking the plunge."

Comments

[Sharyn]

I love this post, because it reminds me of something I learned/realized a while ago. I used to associate "improving" myself too much with "changing" myself. I now realize it works best to try to improve who I already am - look at what I already like, am attracted to, or have a natural ability for, and "polish" that. It's fine to try new pursuits, but I tended to try to force myself to be "into" things i just wasn't "into", and made myself feel bad that I wasn't who I thought I ought to be. Now, I say "Be yourself, and be your best self."

[Ruth]

Ouch! I often struggle to disentangle what I actually enjoy from what I believe I ought to enjoy. In fact, I'm only now leaving a highly successful career I hated for 15 years but pursued with single minded dedication because it was the sort of thing I thought a good person ought to enjoy.

[Amy]

Great post. It reminds me of a conversation I had yesterday with a group of friends.

I mentioned to one person that I had gotten some coffee for my birthday. The group leader asked if I like coffee. I said, "Yes, I roast my own." She replied, "YOU DO WHAT? I've heard of people grinding their own coffee... " She then went on to tell the new people in our group about my interest in geocaching.

[Claudio]

Your appreciation for children's literature and your research on happiness seem to have a lot in common... no wonder most classic children's stories always end with "and the lived haply ever after"...the so desired everlasting happiness everyone seeks.

[Helga]

These underscore the importance of one of my Secrets of Adulthood: “What’s fun for other people may not be fun for you--and vice versa.”

So true!
. . . . . .and very difficult to deal with when the "other people" is your husband of 40+ years. . . . . . .

[Laurie Kendrick]

I found this blog I guess, because the Universe lead me right to it. I'm grappling with what I think I SHOULD be doing and what I want to do. I've spent most of my life in an industry that took more than it gave. Here I am, unemployed for the third time since the turn of the century and in a quagmire. I know I need to get a job, yet the mere idea of going back into radio illicits a visceral reaction. I don't want a job--I want a purpose and something is inside of me, compelling me to wait for it. To hold out for "something" better. Even as my savings dwindles to nothing--along with my credit rating.

My head is in a very weird place; an unfamiliar place. I'm aware of the changes around me, within me and I can no longer fight the urge to no longer fight at all.

Thanks for your post.
lauriekendrick.wordpress.com