I have another confession.  I don’t know if this lesson was explicitly taught to me this way, but I know the message I received growing up was that the things we enjoy are frivolous.  The things we enjoy are only acceptable when we have time for them.  We get to have fun when and if there’s time for it—and there is always something to do so you better make sure that it’s ALL done before you go for the fun stuff.  Because of that I had a tendency to go absolutely wild with my friends to the point of disrespect to them and those around me.  I was so overly disciplined at home (both from explicit and implicit direction) that I never let myself experiment or go against what I was told.  As I’m now in mid-life and understanding full well the real issues behind “mid-life crisis,” I find myself near desperately searching for what I want to do.  Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s a ton of stuff I’m interested in and I have millions of half-started projects to prove it but I still found myself evaluating which of those interests would be “worth” my time.  Instead of operating with curiosity and abandon and just going for it to go for it, I found myself determining what I wanted to do/ultimately would do based on what other people would think and if I would get a return out of it.  That’s not living—that’s trying to stack the odds and it came from having to decide what was worth my time to have fun with as a kid. 

To that latter point, even when I managed to find something I liked, I took it SERIOUSLY.  I needed to be SERIOUS to prove it was a worthwhile endeavor.  Like, if I wanted to craft with Lisa Frank sand art, I better know all the details and do it perfectly.  If I wanted to sing or write, I better hit those notes and make that point perfectly.  So that kind of sucked the fun out of fun because that demanded its own level of perfection—not authenticity.  Diving into new interests doesn’t need to be stressful, and damn it, the fate of our eternal souls isn’t hinging on us changing our makeup one day, or learning to make sourdough, or finding out we like to box, or learning to take care of ourselves holistically.  But I will say this: the weight/fate of the world MAY be.  Hear me out, I’m not trying to be dramatic.  The more we deny ourselves joy and fun to figure out who we are and where our passions and skill sets collide to make our purpose, the less we are able to fulfill our role in the bigger picture.  How sad that the world would be denied our art or wisdom because we decided reading that book on gardening wasn’t worth our time because we had a spreadsheet to finish?  It isn’t selfish or frivolous to do what we are meant to do.  It’s ok to know what we know and enjoy what we enjoy—that’s how we find the core of who we are and we realize that we aren’t just one thing.  It isn’t an inconvenience to be ourselves.  This isn’t about ignoring obligations, this is about understanding not everything is OUR obligation.  This is about boundaries and prioritizing creativity and interest so we align with and express our authentic identity.  The world doesn’t need more fake energy based on manipulation to achieve our goals or to help someone else get richer off of our energy and effort.  The world needs more people aligned with true source and excitement and joy because that is fuel for the soul.

There are other benefits to knowing what we love with no guilt and fully expressing that: When we are around those who see us and know us for who we are, we get a recharge.  We get a jolt from the source and feel revitalized.  It’s a reset.  Doing the things we enjoy, is energizing.  Too often we bog ourselves down with all the must’s and to-do’s we think take precedence over the things that simply bring us joy.  With all of the “going” we never stop to consider what we need.  We keep going until we run that battery right out and wonder why we’re frustrated, crabby, irritable, unable to think straight, and outright exhausted—or worse, actually sick whether mentally or physically.  Friends, when that phone battery dies, it doesn’t turn back on.  When it’s out of juice, it’s done until it gets more of that juice.  The same can be said for us—yet we somehow expect ourselves to keep going when we’re on 0.  The thing is, we can always plug the phone in and boost it back up.  If we push ourselves past that point of 0 too often and for too long, eventually we will run ourselves into the ground and there is no coming back from that.  There is no do-over from that level of 0.  We need to find the time to prioritize fun because there is a different type of energy that happens when we connect to that authentic joy.  It’s different than the endorphins of exercise or the dopamine of achieving a goal or the oxytocin from a genuine hug.  The energy from prioritizing fun through authentic joy is like all of that together.  And here’s a lesson I’m learning now: that type of joy isn’t frivolous—it’s life giving.  We spent enough time doing it on our own or doing it how we were told and how did that work out?  Are we feeling good?  So how about we take a step back and find some time to laugh again?  Youth and life come right back with every authentic smile and giggle—and that is invaluable.  That leads us right to source and we never feel depleted again.