Do What's Fun and Easy

Doing what is fun and easy has become my personal mantra since about 18 months ago. I had always been someone that knew how to push themselves. I was conscientious and overly responsible. I was hard working and reliable (mostly). These qualities had gained me a lot of success in certain areas of my life...but they didn't help me to really enjoy my life. If I were to summarize the feeling, I would say I was more productive than I was happy. It's not that I was unhappy - I just wasn't prioritizing enjoyment for the sheer sake of it! Life had become a project, a job to be done and to be done well.

Something in this started to get tired soon after moving to Northern NSW. It might have been that it didn't any longer make sense in the context of daily walks at a very secluded beach. It might have been that my body just didn't have the energy to be that hectic anymore. It was also a very conscious decision; a tuning into my body and my needs. And as a Psychologist working with people's processes every day, I knew the connection between continuous 'doing' and experiences such as burnout, chronic fatigue, depression and stress. It didn't take a genius to realise that I too would be heading for this if I didn't change something.

So that's when the experiment began: to only do what is FUN and EASY! I literally decided to ask myself at every juncture: "What feels fun right now?" and I would then do exactly what I felt like doing. I remember one week day where I had some paperwork that was nagging at me, and my overly conscientious self thought it needed doing. But I checked in with myself about what felt like fun in that moment. The answer was to watch a movie. My responsible self hated this answer and tried to guilt me into doing the paperwork. It threw 'Shoulds' and 'Oughts' at me; it called me names like 'Lazy', 'Slack' and 'Useless'. But I was defiant and stuck to my guns. I watched two movies that afternoon, even though it was a beautiful day and my conscientious self thought I should go for a walk.

Eventually, ignoring the voices in my head became easier and I relaxed into doing what was fun. And later that week I did get to that paperwork when I felt like it. I wont say it was fun - but it was easy. And that's why the phrase is "Do what's fun and easy" because some stuff will never be fun, but there will be times where it feels easy to do it. Chores, paperwork, dealing with jobs, bills etc fit into this category for me. So now I try to do them when it feels easy. If it feels hard, I just drop it and ask myself what I feel like doing and then I do that very thing.

The experiment is still going, and unfortunately I cannot tell you that I have managed to do what's fun every moment of every day for the past 18 months. Like anything it takes constant awareness. But its getting easier. And life is feeling a lot more fun and enjoyable. The part of me that didn't know how to relax is getting less insistent. The part of me that wants to play and enjoy life is getting stronger. And I notice that as I change in these ways, not only do I laugh more but I have more energy and my life is starting to resemble something I feel excited about. I am also putting a lot less pressure on those around me and my relationships are more enjoyable, relaxed and loving.

Wisdom No 5

Simply do what feels fun and do things that aren't fun when they feel easy!!