I am unhappily discovering that a lot of my activities revolve around obligation, not enjoyment. That is not a suggestion that everything in life is one big happy circus, but these particular obligations started out as hobbies or fun activities, and now they are somehow integrated into a big responsibility package minus the smiles and sense of enjoyment.
Although this is very generalised statement that does not impact everybody, Americans seem to suffer from the "fun isn't really fun" issue. As I circle around and look at others, I see them stressing out over their obligation to something that was pure fun six months previously. I pitied them and said that I would never do that. HELLO! It's like a drug habit for me.
These are the stages as I look back on hobbies that have turned into obligations.
- This is so much fun! I love it!
- Cool.
- *sigh* Busy, but I'll make it work.
- Christ, why did I do this?
- It's OK. Really. I'm just too busy at the moment.
- I hate this! I should quit, but other people are relying on me and I really do enjoy it and I don't want to cut myself off from the possibility of getting 5 minutes of excitement out of it, so I'll continue to invest hours for every 5 minutes of enjoyment since I've made an commitment and I shouldn't be a quitter.
Well, those are at least my stages. The problem with stages 1-5 is that I'm constantly convincing myself that the rest of life will change to make the hobby more interesting, and by the time I get to 6, I feel so guilty, stupid, and committed that I just blindly continue.
There, I acknowledged it.
