How I Stopped LIVING LIFE TO ITS FULLEST
It took me a long time to understand what LIVING LIFE TO ITS FULLEST really meant to me. There are so many books and blogs and articles about all the people who are getting the most out of their life by doing what they want and going on adventures and partying until dawn and doing crazy things in the spur of the moment.
This is it. I would think. These are the people who are doing it right. These are the people who are wringing every last drop out of life. Did I want to be lying on my death bed thinking that I’m glad I played it safe? Hell, no! I want to be confident that I lived the crap out of my life and did everything possible to make sure I enjoyed every second.
I started out alright. In my early twenties, I went skydiving, I would go on spur-of-the-moment trips, I frequently partied until dawn — once getting up the next day and going snowboarding, never having snowboarded in my life. I played on three softball teams and an ultimate frisbee team and went camping on weekends. I was constantly making plans and going out. I lived in Chile for nine months, teaching English. I hiked the Inca Trail.
In my late thirties, I started slowing down, but I always thought I should be doing more. I felt like a failure when I ended up just staying in for the weekend and watching TV. I needed to go on an adventure! I needed to join more sports teams! I needed to go camping! I needed to go on spur-of-the-moment trips and skydive and bungee jump and go white water rafting! I can’t have free time, free time is for boring people.
So, I’d push myself to do stuff and made plans to go on adventures, but the stuff wasn’t as fun as it used to be and the adventures usually fell through. Mostly because I desperately didn’t want to go on them.
Then something occurred to me: maybe LIVING LIFE TO ITS FULLEST means something different when you’re in your forties (or thirties for people who figured this out sooner than I did).
As part of my ongoing self-improvement, I’ve been trying to figure out what happiness looks like to me. I’d always thought it meant adventures and parties and no plans and fun and jumping out of bed every day with a lust for life because you never know what amazing thing is going to happen. For my whole life, this is what I’ve been searching for.
But, as I started really thinking about what actually makes me happy, I realized it was none of those things. I will never be a person who jumps out of bed with a lust for life. I likely wouldn’t even jump out of bed if there was a fire in my condo. Even on weekends, when I can sleep as long as I want, it still takes me at least 30 minutes to roll myself out. I love my bed. I love sleeping. Being in bed makes me happy.
Camping does not make me happy. I hate camping. Sleeping on the ground under a piece of canvas with bugs and bears and coyotes and disgusting public toilets which are a 10-minute walk away is basically my nightmare. Sleeping in a bed in a room with the window open and a clean bathroom that I can access without putting on shoes makes me happy.
I like plans. I like knowing what’s coming next. No matter how hard I try to do things all willy-nilly, plans keep my anxiety at bay. Plans make me happy.
Adventure backpacking trips with dorm room hostels and shared bathrooms: unhappy. Traveling to safe places with hotels and restaurants and not talking to people I don’t know: happy.
Going to big parties or crowded clubs where I don’t know anyone and have to have a few drinks so I can talk to strangers: unhappy. Going for drinks or dinner or brunch with friends or (OMG!) staying home on a Friday night with a good book or Netflix: very happy.
Writing makes me happy; running makes me happy; checking things off my to-do list makes me happy. Simple things like setting goals and achieving them make me happy, even if that goal is to just check one more thing off my to-do list before I watch TV.
Now my idea of LIVING LIFE TO ITS FULLEST is just living life to its fullest — not loud and exciting, but at a normal scale and fulfilling. I don’t need to play on seven sports teams and pack my social schedule so full that I don’t have time to have an emotion. I don’t have to sky-dive or bungee jump or run a marathon to get the most out of life; my life is fuller when I sit and talk and really listen to people and make connections and feel things and learn and, ultimately, grow.
This may not sound exciting — mostly because it isn’t — and I may not be as “fun” as I used to be. I will likely not wake up one day and just decide I’m going to move to Toronto. There is a very good chance I will never go snowboarding again. But I’m OK with that now. I don’t need to adhere to some crazy adventurous life I imagined for myself merely because it’s what I thought a good life looked like. I’m 43 years old; I’m not married; I don’t have kids, and I haven’t dated anyone for over a decade — there is nothing about my life right now that I would have imagined a “great life” would look like — but I love it, and wouldn’t change a thing.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I still want to go on adventures and take risks and try new things and meet new people, but I will do those things when I want to and because I want to, not because I think I should. And I will not feel guilty about spending a night on the couch watching TV. Or an entire weekend.
Because that’s what I like to do. That’s what happiness looks like to me.
How I Stopped LIVING LIFE TO ITS FULLEST
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