When was the last time you did something simply because you enjoyed it without worrying whether you were any good?
As children, we’re encouraged to draw, paint, sing and create simply because those activities are fun. Nobody expects a finger painting to show up in a museum or a recorder performance to be worthy of a standing ovation.
Somewhere along the way, that changes.
Suddenly, picking up a new hobby comes with the expectation that we should be good at it.
And if we’re not? Well, it’s time to find something else. It’s a strange way to approach something that’s supposed to make us happy.
We’ve become so accustomed to measuring our time through productivity and achievement that even our free time can start to feel like another responsibility. Hobbies become skills to develop, projects to complete and accomplishments to show off.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But why does everything we enjoy need to become something more?
Consider how often people dismiss their own creative efforts before anyone else even gets the chance. A drawing is accompanied by an apology for how terrible it looks. Someone hesitates to share a photograph because it isn’t particularly impressive. A person who enjoys singing insists they’re awful at it. It’s as though we’re embarrassed to admit we enjoy something we haven’t mastered.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with selling your creations or working toward improvement. Improving at something you love and developing a skill can be incredibly satisfying, and taking pride in your work is hardly a bad thing. But there’s a difference between wanting to improve and believing you must improve to justify doing something.
Sometimes, I think we’ve forgotten that being bad at something can actually be part of the fun.
There’s something wonderfully freeing about creating something with absolutely no intention of showing it to anyone.
You can draw an objectively terrible portrait, write poetry that would make your high school English teacher cringe or spend an entire afternoon trying to learn three chords on a guitar.
Nobody has to see it, nobody has to like it, and you certainly don’t have to make money from it. Sometimes making something is enough. Things can exist simply because they make us happy.
There’s a certain freedom in being an amateur. You can experiment without worrying about perfection, make mistakes without treating them as failures and create things that exist for no audience other than yourself.
We already spend enough of our lives worrying about whether we’re doing things correctly, efficiently or successfully. We shouldn’t have to bring those same expectations into the activities we turn to for a break.
Being bad at something doesn’t make it a waste of time.
So make something terrible. You might even have fun.
Categories: Opinion
