This chapter's projects: Find More Fun. Here's one observation I do want to mention about the book's author -- I appreciate the fact that she so eloquently expresses things that I often feel. It's like she put it into print so I could cut and paste it for my own purposes. Rubin first shares that studies have proven that the absence of feeling bad isn’t enough to make you happy; you must strive to find sources of feeling good. One way to feel good is to make time for play. Researchers define "fun" as an activity that’s very satisfying, has no economic significance, doesn’t create social harm, and doesn’t necessarily lead to praise or recognition. Research shows that regularly having fun is a key factor in having a happy life; people who have fun are twenty times as likely to feel happy. But then Rubin said something startling that smacked so true for me: "just because something was fun for someone else didn’t mean it was fun for me—and vice versa. There are many things that other people enjoy that I don’t."
Rubin said she loved the "idea" of playing chess, doing crossword puzzles, or having season tickets to the opera. She understood why other people enjoyed those activities, but those weren't necessarily her ideas of fun. My husband and I have friends who can go out every weeknight to events, cocktail parties, etc. While that idea sounds great and glamorous and we wished that we did have it in us to rally like that every night, the reality is -- we are homebodies. Coming home after a day of work sinking into the sofa and watching our favorite shows with our dog by our feet is our idea of heavenly. We were once given tickets to a performance at the SF Opera from my brother and sister-in-law who were season-ticket holders. I marveled at how cultured they were and gosh, ok, we'll go! Within minutes, we were bored to tears and struggled to stay awake through the first act, but vowed at intermission to try an appreciate this amazing art form. Ten minutes into the show, I look over at my husband and he's fast asleep and I only looked at him because I was dozing off myself! We rudely "pardon me, excuse me" bumbled our way out of our seats and left. Oh, the sense of relief! We stumbled across a restaurant next door called Jardinere and enjoyed the most incredible meal instead. Now, THAT was fun. Turns out the restaurant was owned by the very famous, now celebrity chef, Traci De Jardins.
According to Rubin, studies show that common interests between people boosts the chances of a lasting relationship and also brings about a 2-percent increase in life satisfaction. My husband and I have a lot in common and I marvel at it often. I appreciate that we enjoy many of the same things. So, finding more fun, is not a problem. Sure, we like to be home, but we also are two very competitive people. Not having children was almost incentive to make sure that our life was not held back. This year alone we've done some amazing things -- dog sledding, skeet shooting, and mud races just to name a few.
For Rubin, thinking about what fun meant to her and accepting her likes and dislikes made her also realize that you can DO ANYTHING you want, but you can’t DO EVERYTHING you want...and it made her sad. I've had that moment of realization myself. For me, age had always been just a number and time was infinite. As a teen-ager, my bucket list included sky diving. I have tried to do it twice and both times the weather was not in my favor. As years passed I realized that I may be trying to accomplish this only because I put it on a silly bucket list, but did I actually want to do it anymore? The answer was no. Another epiphany moment was when I was looking at beautiful dining table in a store. All my life I envisioned a dining table similar to that one in my future house. Wait. I do have a house. Wait. I already have a dining room table. Wait. I will never have that dining table because I will never have the house that would actually fit this type of table. Not in this lifetime. It was like someone shook me into reality that age is no longer a number and time is not infinite in a person's lifetime. So what must you do? Enjoy every moment that you do have, be happy with what you do have.
Take Time to Be Silly. A happy atmosphere isn’t created merely by the absence of nagging and yelling but also by jokes, games, and tomfoolery. Studies show that in a phenomenon called “emotional contagion,” we unconsciously catch emotions from other people—whether good moods or bad ones. Taking the time to be silly means that we’re infecting one another with good cheer, and people who enjoy silliness are one third more likely to be happy. The way my brother and I were brought up, there was no silliness, no joking around, no pranks. I think that was to our detriment because I don't take kidding around well, especially if the joke is on me. I think the lack of that in our childhood has made me overly sensitive, I don't recover well when the joke is on me and I tend to over-analyze why the joke was played on me and I actually hate that about myself. I can only hope that my brother makes an effort with his kids to bring the silliness to them. To me, I think being silly is a life-learning lesson. It could potentially teach you to let something roll of your back and not take it personally is a struggle, and also to work on being able to come back with a witty retort, etc.
Most recently, I've noticed that when I am with kids, the silliness comes out. The same goes for my husband. I know parents can be silly with their kids, but I think it surprised me how silly we could get with other people's kids. I've played hide and seek behind baby car seats, I've had water-gun shooting contests and my husband has done his share of play wrestling, video game playing, horsey rides, etc. So the good news is, we've got it in us to be silly.
Go off the path. And this is where the author loses me and the doubt about her to starts to creep in. Rubin says the reasoning for this "off the path" project was meant to push me to encounter the unexpected thoughts, unfamiliar scenes, new people, and unconventional juxtapositions that are key sources of creative energy—and happiness. Instead of always worrying about being efficient, I wanted to spend time on exploration, experimentation, digression, and failed attempts that didn’t always look productive. I get what Rubin is getting at, but I don't get her methodology. Her way of doing this was buying magazines she typically wouldn't and read them cover to cover. She admitted that she dreaded those days and it felt like work but in the end she was glad she did because she learned something new. I hate this example. Why would I waste my time doing something I don't want to do? If I'm interested in something then I'll try it, but I won't do it if there's no interest behind it. And that's what Rubin's effort sounded like. She initially starts off this particular project paragraph about how she admires her mother's adventurous spirit who travels to new places for new experiences. To me, her mother does that because she likes to do that! If traveling falls along the "go off the path" category, then I believe my husband and I succeed regularly. But doing something you aren't interested in doing, like forcing yourself to read a magazine about horses, paper crafts and Christianity, to me was just plain silly. To me, Rubin has her projects switched on this one! Irritating.
Start a collection.You can't be serious. The irritation continues with this project, or also follows under the "silly" project title. A collection provides a mission, a reason to visit new places, the excitement of the chase, a field of expertise (no matter how trivial), and, often, a bond with other people. Rubin decided to collect bluebirds. Then she posed the question to her readers and asked them what they liked to collect. Replies came back with people who collected books, hearts, etc. I could only relate to one reader who wrote: As for collections, too much “stuff” displayed around the house makes me feel suffocated...On the note of collections, I’m sure they’re fun for others, but I simply don’t want to store, clean, and maintain more things. I’d rather spend my time reading, decorating my house, or trying new recipes. Amen to that. If there's a gun to my head, then I will say that I like to collect happy memories through my photos. That's happy clutter. How's that?
