Having Fun. 🪼

I am not having fun.

I am not having fun anymore. Everything is wrapped in real high stakes like purpose, and money to pay the bills. From grocery prices, to the crushing weight of trying to earn a living, to the worry that both my cat and I need to lose some weight and are fast approaching middle age together. From what I hear that comes with a free side serving of existential dread. What even *is* middle age? If we are all going to live to 100, is it 50? Is it mid 40’s? Shit. Am I already in it? No one told me!

I was on the river the other day, a beautiful day, clear water, spectacular scenery, a spot I’d never seen before, my boyfriend happily commenting on all the different kinds of rocks or something about flow and water dynamics acting like electricity (tbh, I barely follow when he goes full nerd mode, but I nod along enthusiastically)...a gorgeous day lay ahead.

Yet, I felt as flat and drowning in (self-appointed) demands crushing over me, as the water on the worn river rocks. All I could think was: “Been here, done that. I can’t breathe. What if it never works out?”.

The demands

Recently, I had been to Vienna where my sister and I went to a women’s business event (my sister is as smart as she is gorgeous and successful) where we met remarkably impactful and accomplished people. There was a panel discussion, during which the lack of self promotion of women in the STEM industries was discussed and the consensus had been something along the lines “they/we have to be more self confident”. The discussion moved on, but I never did.

The people on the panel had straightlined to a specific outcome of how that confidence would show. Being more show-y being one of them. So I kept wondering of which image everyone was modelling this “self confidence” by?

Words are loaded. They are fuzzy and muddled by layers of overuse in one prominent context over another and often revert to meaning only this one thing in this one context. An obvious example being the word “gay”, which used to just mean jolly and happy and now only means homosexual.

…Like to me, self confidence looks like the character “Rip” from “Yellowstone”. Strong, quiet, action before words, get-what-you-want-with-just-the-tip-of-a-hat-and-a-glare energy.

Unfortunately, by nature, when I want something, I am more like a golden retriever who couldn’t pass K-9 training. All bright eyed and bushy tailed.

And this is why I am not having fun.
I am trying really, really hard to be Rip, when I’m actually - just me.

You can’t compete with someone who’s having fun.

So whilst we are trying to reach a goal, we are also conjuring up an image of what the actual process of trying must look like, priming ourselves for double worry, double failure, double misery, double performance anxiety.

But I know one thing for sure: perseverance is only sustainable if we are IN LOVE with our process. Otherwise we burn out.

In my last letter I mentioned the issue I have with the rather flat credo of “just believe in yourself”. What if you can’t, because you believe you don’t have an image of yourself believing in yourself, in your mind?

I don’t think you have to believe in yourself. I think you have to know yourself.

If the indoctrination of the image of what you think other people who “believe in themselves” actually look like or feel like while they are doing “it”, doesn’t match your own behaviour and feelings, you’ll never trust your instincts, which is a prerequisite for that elusive self belief.

If you stay curious, and just keep going, you’ll get stronger in trusting your instincts, and whatever behaviour and feelings transpire from that -> that’s what you actually look like when you believe in yourself. In turn, you will enjoy the process rather than the goal, and thus, have fun. And if you’re having fun, you are unbeatable.

What does fun actually look like?

I had a friend who is long lost to Scientology, but she did teach me one useful thing: Always check the true meaning of words. So, instead of trying to copy the picture you have pre-installed as a reference, look up the etymology of a word, and then consider what you actually look like doing something in that vein.

• “Confidence” comes from the Latin con “with” and fidere “to trust”. So it literally just means doing something “with trust”.
  If the goal is to be more confident, then maybe it’s enough to just picture what you actually look like when you’re doing something with trust. (hint: for me, it’s not cool, calm and collected).

• “Courage” comes from Latin cor, or the French “coeur” meaning “heart.” Being courageous just means doing something “with heart”. So what do you actually look like when you do it with heart? (hint: when I do something “with heart” there’s a lot of fear and bursts of anger. Whilst I am doing the thing, I do NOT look courageous.)

• “Amateur” just means someone who is doing something for the love of it. If someone calls you a amateurish or you feel like you’re a total beginner, congratulations! You are acting your interest.

• “Enthusiasm” comes from Greek entheos “possessed by a god,” literally “the god within”. Enthusiasm just means being divinely inspired. So, you don’t have to look like a Disney princess in the middle of the best friend montage when you’re enthusiastic about something. You can be enthusiastic, yet, still.

• “Peace” comes from Latin ‘pax’ related to agreements or pacts. Peace just implies a state created through agreement. It does not mean you must fly to Bali on a yoga retreat meditating on a beach at sunrise.
  Being at peace simply means you’re in agreement with yourself, your values, and your circumstances. Which also means that peace, must be infinitely re-negotiated. It is the friction between your actualities of life, your values and your instincts which propels you forward, so be under no illusion that peace is permanent. However, if you manage to enjoy the negotiation itself, aka, the process rather than the outcome, then life truly IS all fun and games.

My point is this: I would like to say to the people on that panel, who tell the women in STEM (or in my case, blue collar work) to be more confident, that I absolutely agree. We should have the confidence not to play by the rules (and images) that others made up for us, but instead by the essence of the word, so we can act in honest confidence, not performative confidence.

Because:

I don’t want my gravestone to say “She gave a good Rip from Yellowstone impression”.

I want it to say “She was always Hanni.”

Godspeed my friends.

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