There are quite a few things I don’t really like to do.

Now there used to be way, way more, actually, so stuff has certainly changed for the better.

But, still.

I was just thinking about all these activities and chores I don’t really appreciate and feel like I’m wasting my time.

And I was reflecting on why we don’t seem to be able to enjoy more stuff, purely as a practical thing.

It would make sense: if you have to do them anyway, why not feel good about it?

Wouldn’t it be awesome to just like everything, so we don’t feel bad or bored while being engaged with it?

Guess it doesn’t really work like that.

Over the last few years, I’ve seen the randomness of what we like.

How I can totally hate things you love doing, for instance, and vice versa.

And how what we like is often not really about what we like.

Here’s what I mean by that.

In a good mood, most things are at least okay.

In a shitty mood, though, we dislike almost anything, and even the smallest activity can feel like shoveling a mountain of shit with a teaspoon.

Is there something we can do about that, or change, to make things more pleasurable and agreeable?

Well, this is what I’ve learned: it’s very hard to deliberately love everything, to change your preferences mechanically and by force, and to suddenly deeply enjoy stuff that you’ve never enjoyed before.

And it’s a lot of work too!

Luckily for us, there’s a way out.

Or around.

Instead of trying to like a specific activity intentionally (by listing all its benefits, telling yourself that there are many other things that are way worse, that it will eventually be finished, or that you should just be grateful for being alive in the first place), you can learn to feel good for no reason.

And if you learn to just feel good, on a daily basis, as an unconditional, natural state of being (it actually IS a natural state of being), it doesn’t really matter what you do anymore.

You flip the system.

If you realize that activities don’t inherently come with specific emotions and feelings, that they don’t CAUSE your emotions and feelings, things start to change.

You see that there’s no real connection.

That things and activities and chores don’t create the feelings we experience.

You start to notice that whatever you feel about what you’re doing, is merely the effect of your imagination, a learned, mental response with physical effects, some random experience you’ve unconsciously attached to the thing.

And now the thing seems to influence your emotions.

Of course, you can try to undo all those unconscious connections, but it takes a looooong time, you will never be able to catch them all, and there’s a quicker way to become free from these cycles of misunderstanding.

Learning to be fine, period, as an authentic way of living, as your natural state, takes care of everything.

Just think about this: if you’re in love (which is a good feeling for most people), there’s hardly anything you hate to do.

Since your heart is filled with joy and positivity and maybe even butterflies, you pump that good stuff straight into the most boring things.

You make activities fun because you bring fun to the table.

Because you feel like fun, EVERYTHING feels like fun.

If you realize that this is how it really works, you’ll start to see more and more that (almost) everything can be done with attention and joy and curiosity, if that’s how you show up.

This is not an overnight thing by the way.

It starts with a bit of recognition and some awareness, and the willingness to play with it.

But once you get going, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

And the world becomes filled with things you like to do.

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(Photo by @scott_umstattd, for Unsplash)