Why Life Is Not All About Having Fun
Life is not about having fun.
I’m no philosopher, psychologist, or religious educator. I’m don’t write self-help bibles and pretend to know it all, because I surely do not. I’m just a simple, 27 year old girl; okay wait, a “kind of simple” 27 year old girl, who is trying to find her way in this world and *oh, hey!*, has figured some things out.
Living downtown has given me many gifts. Firstly, a short uber ride to and fro. Secondly, a place where I could be near my boyfriend, my jobs, my coffee dates, my happy hours, and my homeless (yep, starting to feel territorial over certain ones!). I may have struggled to make sure I could pay my rent and make ends meet more than a few times, but living downtown has been a huge blessing… or at least, I thought so?
(brief background)
In college, I wasn’t a partier. I filled my time with a lot of work, photography, people, dates (even some online dates..), and school. I never threw back shots. I never “partied.” Being at a dry campus had something to do with that, but honestly, I’ve never been one to just go rage just to rage.
When my cousin died in 2014, I feel like I essentially lost a year of my life. For one year, I was taking MANY steps backwards in pretty much every way. Grief will do that to you.
Mid 2015 I started to rediscover “normal” and finally started dating again, going out again, and shooting photos again.
My “fun life” basically started when I met Trevor. I wasn’t used to making any real money, going on trips, or going out on the town nightly. That relationship started a new world for me… which was this weird, new, blast of fun.
We went all over. We did ALL the things. We saw the shows and drank the beers and took the day trips and visited allllll the places. We also spent… all the money!
I went from being in zero debt to being in all sorts of debt VERY fast. It’s hard to keep up with people who have had real jobs for longer than 6 months, let me tell you.
At the end of the day, all of my relationships were consumed by “experiences.”
Fun movies. Fun hikes. Fun brunches. Fun beerfests. Heck, even “fun” bible studies.
It just seemed like everything was so “fun” all the time.
The truth of the matter is that life is not about having fun. Life is not about being “happy” all the time. Happiness is so fleetingand true joy surely does not come from “finding a beer.”
True satisfaction comes from living for something bigger than yourself. True happiness comes from extending your gifts into the world. True joy comes from learning and growing through the hard times… not “enjoying” all of the FUN times.
A couple of weeks ago, Trevor, JT, Haley and I tried a new church in West Linn. The pastor mentioned something about how God didn’t put us on this planet to “have a blast.” I looked at Trevor and he was like “not true, he put ME here to have a blast.” I laughed.
At the end of the day, it’s really hard to see what is going on in your life when you flood it with “fun.”
You know how, at the end of your hard cardio workout, a glass of water tastes SO good. It tastes like candy! Water tastes different after you’ve put in the hard time and the hard work, it’s just a fact. If you just continue to mask your true, real life problems with “good times,” you’re never going to be truly satisfied.
Life doesn’t consist of all Lemonade, people!
It’s mainly lemons. Lots of good lemony lemons.
You know how “yucky” you feel at the end of a vacation? Yeah. It’s that kind of feeling.
The reason I wanted to bring this up was not to sound ungrateful for all of the really amazing experiences that I’ve had in the last few years… but to shed light on a bigger issue in my own personal journey; it’s time to stop having fun.
In the last 2 years, I can count on one hand how many times I got up earlier than 8AM. I am ashamed at the amount of money I’ve spent dining out, buying stupid clothes for Instagram, and even “investing in my business.” Being self-employed is not easy! Freedom is not easy.
I thought that being self-employed would help me become my best self and quite frankly, it just hasn’t. I feel like I’ve accomplished some pretty cool things, but this life just isn’t for everyone; maybe not even me.
Sometimes I daydream about having a corporate job again; something where someone else dishes out the paycheck and I just follow direction. Wouldn’t that be nice.
Anyways; although the year is almost half over (how did that happen!?!?!), I am going to reinvent myself and start fresh. I need to start investing in things that are hard, challenging, and complicated. It’s just a good practice, you know?
How will you challenge yourself this year?
-Chelsea
