That Sounds Fun: The Joys of Being an Amateur, the Power of Falling in Love, and Why You Need a Hobby

by Annie F. Downs

I’m not here to tell you to carpe your diems. That’s not the solution. To me that is just the other side of the same coin, asking where to find the thing we have lost and what’s the quickest way to escape from here or fill in the gap of what is missing with anything we can find. I think the truer statement is that what we have lost is real. That thing we know is missing is no joke. It’s legit. While the world may look at your life and tell you that you have everything, you know the quiet, nagging whisper of truth. We have lost Eden, we have lost peace, we have lost the foundation upon which genuine fun can be built. And we have to go search for it.

We tested my emotions—the tightness between your emotional health and physical health is immense—and the main emotion that came up was a feeling of being abandoned. That word appears almost every time she tests me. But it doesn’t make me cry. It doesn’t bring up bad memories. I wasn’t abandoned as a child, and I don’t feel abandoned by a romantic partner. The actual definition of abandon is “lack of protection, support, or help from.”2 And as we read over the test results this time, I looked at Robin with clear and sober eyes and said, “Yes, that is true of me. I spend every day thinking about how I am in charge of myself, how no one else is thinking of me, how I have no covering.”

I THINK when we go looking for fun what we are actually looking for is home. We are looking for peace. We are looking for simplicity, something to fill that spot that has been left by growing up or growing out or moving on. While we think we want fun, what we really want is Eden.

I’ve come to realize that it’s the moments of fun that remind us that Eden ever existed in the first place.

I blinked back to that memory of my childhood, that day when my little legs were crisscrossed on the cool cement, and I wondered why it had been so long since I felt that feeling. It zipped across my memory while I sat on Ellie’s back porch, and my childhood was so close for a split second. There is something to those moments, something that is worth paying attention to and holding close. When we feel those moments, what are we meant to do with them or remember from them? If you have eyes for providence, you will always see it. If you look for God’s movement in your daily life, you will see Him. And I just keep finding that when moments like the one I had on Ellie’s back porch lasso some long dropped-off memory, I need to pay attention. One of the kindest things I’ve done for myself in the last decade is learn to pay attention to myself without judgment. When memories like that come to the front of my brain, I notice. They matter. They aren’t something to be squashed or ignored. And as soon as that Ebenezer Road front porch memory ran through my mind and changed my heart and affected my stomach, I realized I felt the loss of it. We may not have the words, or the exact knowledge of what those moments bring up, but we know something feels off.

SOMETIMES IN THE MIDDLE of a tragedy, someone needs to make you laugh. Sometimes in the middle of a heartbreak, you need to ride a roller coaster.

But you know that. You know the rush always wears off. You know the laughter eventually stops. You know the sun will set, or rise, and the fun of today will end. It is one of the disappointing things about alcohol or a date or anything that seems to promise you a high that always lasts a few minutes less than you hoped it would. It ends. It always does. Even the purest, truest fun doesn’t last forever. It is always a glimpse of something bigger, something we miss. But that doesn’t mean we stop asking the question, What sounds fun to you? In fact, I would say it is more necessary the more you understand that neither joy nor pain last forever, and it is far better to hold them both at the same time than to lean your life too heavily on one or the other. Knowing what sounds fun to you is about more than just filling your time and having an answer to a question at a party (or the end of a podcast interview). To know what sounds fun to you, what uniquely brings a level of joy and peace and simple rest to your heart, is what reminds you that God’s journey for your life includes glimpses of Eden that show up in smile lines on your face and laughter that sounds just like you and art made from your unique spot on this planet.

If I think I can only do something I’m great at, or something I can fake greatness in, I will live a very limited life.

Every day is the first day we’ve ever done today, so maybe there just needs to be a little more acknowledgment of the amateur who lives and actually thrives in each of us.

Some things are meant to stay amateur level for us. Some things are meant to teach us and grow us and bring us joy, not income. But there are other times when being an amateur is the first step in walking toward the thing that brings us joy AND income, brings God honor, changes lives, and feels like we’re suddenly 100 percent right where we are supposed to be.

But asking “Am I supposed to be a pro or am I supposed to be an amateur?” is the wrong question. The right question is “What brings flourishing in my life and the lives of the people I love?”

But if your heart flourishes, if the enemy is silenced from telling you that your life doesn’t matter, you know that even the tiniest steps toward something your guts are saying you are made to do are worth it. Amateur or not.

THE DAY DID NOT UNFOLD as I predicted. It wasn’t Eden as I imagined it in my mind. It wasn’t the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, but maybe I don’t want the pot of gold. Maybe what we’ve actually always wanted is the rainbow. That’s the only thing we can see anyway. There never has been a pot of gold. But there have always been rainbows.

“Most anything CAN be fun. It just depends on us.” And I said, “Yes. I want to get THAT as a tattoo.” Most anything can be fun. It just depends on us. Not just me and not just you. It depends on us. I think that may be the secret sauce here. Eden wasn’t complete with just Adam. Before the snake, before sin, before anything went wrong, it was already wrong for Adam to be alone. The joys of being an amateur are better when we aren’t alone in them. Life is just better with than without.

Fun is never meant to replace pain, or better said, fun will never replace pain. But fun can walk alongside it. You can hold them both and see what happens when they dance together.

But we also know the release of a laugh and the freedom of a smile in a heartbreaking moment. We know that there can be joy in grief. That’s the magic trick here; that’s the piece you have to search for and find and give to your people. Every time you provide a smile amid tears, every time you get cookies delivered to a teenager at the hospital just because you know she loves warm cookies, every time you think of that one little fun thing that may make someone else’s day better, the people you are serving with your fun are getting a glimpse at Eden, and so are you.

And I’m not being insensitive or crass with the word love like they used to tell us in church—that people use love too liberally and don’t really know what it means . . . blah blah blah. I absolutely mean this. I feel love big. I feel everything very big. I don’t feel one thing small. I feel big happy and big sad. I feel big excitement and big yikes. I feel big anger and big love. It’s just all big. I used to dislike that about me. That everything was BIG.

My heart is on my sleeve because in the truest sense of the phrase, that is just how God made me. So I love big and I love a lot. In the same way that wisdom sometimes looks like holding back our words, it also sometimes looks like holding back our love—feeling it, yes, but not allowing it to leak out quite so early—whether it’s a love for a burrito or a dude. But holding back how much I share doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. And the more days I live on this planet, the more I am learning that I don’t have to control my feelings. They are allowed to ride along with me anywhere I go; they just aren’t the best drivers. I need to feel them and hear them and pay attention to them but not let them lead the way. Love can lead though. It’s powerful to let yourself fall in love with something (or someone). It shows a level of vulnerability when you admit to yourself that the emotion you feel is love. For some reason there’s an understanding in Western culture, probably mostly in men but often in women as well, that says we have to hold back our love. Don’t get too excited, don’t get too into something, be balanced and cool and don’t let anyone know how stoked you are. I’m calling a BIG NOPE on that because that’s not being wise; that’s being scared. Scared to stand out. Scared to tell the truth. Scared to really like something that other people don’t really like (that you know of). You want to learn to have fun? FALL IN LOVE. Fall in love over and over every day with something and ma...

But I’ve also gotten in the habit of making egg salad, a mixture that you either love or hate, and if you love it, you love it a very certain way. I made up my recipe—six eggs, about 1/3 cup of mayonnaise, 1/4 cup of mustard, 1 tablespoon of dried dill, and one chopped pickle. You will probably hate that particular recipe, so adjust it to what you want.

On my best days, when a guy I’m dating is being incredibly sweet and exactly the kind of dude I’m looking for, she’ll say, “Isn’t that great? Savor this. Don’t rush it. This is the good stuff.” And she is right. At the same time, on the days that feel confusing or a guy is being quiet and the panic starts to rise up in me, she’ll say it again, “Savor this. There’s something to be learned here. Something to be healed. You should sit in it.” And although I want to escape the pain, like a snake trying to get out of its skin, I know she’s right. Even if that pain leads to pure sadness, Jenn asks me if I’m willing to savor that too. I’m not great at that. When a relationship ends, I give myself a day or two to cry, but then the voice in my head changes from being a comforting friend to a motivational coach. I tell myself it’s time to stop feeling sad. It’s up and to the right from here on out, Downs! Time to move on to someone or something or someplace new! Go do something fun! But Jenn doesn’t always agree with that, and I’m grateful.

So often in our world today, no matter if your personality is just like mine or totally different, we think strength is shown when we force sadness to end. We think we have grown up, matured, and increased in health and humanness when we put a full stop to feeling sad or disappointed. Pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps is always rewarded. But it just wasn’t ever meant to be that way. We rush seasons in our personal lives, hurrying through dating for engagement, hurrying through college to get to adulthood, hurrying through the toddler years to get to kindergarten, hurrying through the chemo to get the clear diagnosis. But what is there to gain from letting the season decide its own length instead? No amount of self-control, willpower, or changing your wardrobe is going to make the summer turn to fall fast enough for some of us. Fast enough for me. So even in August, when the sun is hotter than you want it to be, and as September approaches and “Surely we get to wear fall clothes in North America now, right?”—we need to remember we actually have no control of that. We notice the mornings that start to have a bite of coolness in the air, we love the nights when we have to grab a cardigan or a jacket on the way out the door to dinner. But we have no control over any of it. We just get to notice it, enjoy it, and savor it.

am here to tell you the most fun in life comes from loving what you love and letting yourself love all the way in and withholding only when wisdom says to, not when fear is speaking.

I’m scared to be brave today, too, if that helps you at all. I’m scared to love today, scared to hope. I’m worried that I’m going to look like a fool or end up more bruised. And if I’m being totally honest with you, every time I get a bruise, I want to become the girl in the plastic bubble and not let anyone near my heart. But I think that’s what my MiniBFFs do for me. They keep me soft. They bump into the bruises but don’t hurt them.

I feel like I learned a lesson that day at Sevier Park. I learned that fun is worth the risk. Honestly, it’s all worth the risk.

It’s a kind of love I didn’t know to ask for, a love that is so profound and deep and other, it just must be a gift.

“I’m going to make a list of all the things I want to try.” And everything she listed required her to be an amateur. Everything she listed required her to fall in love in one way or another. Everything she listed was an activity that someone else would call a hobby.

Hobbies make space. They remind us of something beautiful, and that good can come from nothing. That seeds become flowers and ingredients become soup and yarn becomes mittens. And when the whole world is broken, it’s just nice to know we have the tiniest ability to put pieces together.

There is this opportunity, especially for people of faith, to partner with the God we serve to make things better on Earth. John Mark Comer writes about it in Garden City, but many pastors and teachers also talk about it a lot. We were always meant to create. To create with God, to take the natural resources on our planet and in our hearts and put them together to make something that brings life and flourishing to ourselves and our neighbors. I don’t know this for sure, but maybe that was easier when people lived more slowly and more intentionally and didn’t have Instagram. Maybe the days on the porch with my grandmother, snapping the beans, were building something I couldn’t see.

I hope this book club will last. I hope this one has some distance to it. But maybe one of the things I love about book club is it isn’t forever. I never knew it wasn’t, but now I do. And when you learn that, you love it differently. So I’m loving this book club differently.

Maybe hobbies are also moments along your path that tell you who you were and who you are and who you want to be. Maybe you’re like me and they mark growth within yourself and your community and with God.

I sat with a friend a few days ago and she said, “You show what matters most by what you say yes and no to, by who gets your time and your money.” It really made me think—about hobbies, about friendship, and about the speed at which I’m living my life.

Remember, a hobby is defined as an activity “done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.”

And you need a hobby too. You need a hobby because you need space. You need space in your life because you need connection.

What makes life fun isn’t the getting to where we are going; fun is in the going together. The rainbow, not the pot of gold. The soccer practice, not the end of the game. Fun is right where you are. It is yours for the taking. Connection with God and connection with people, reminders of the best parts of your past and the dreams of your future, peace in the midst of a spinning storm and rest in the middle of a busy week. So chase the fun, friend. Go after it. Find what sounds fun to you, and you will find what you are really looking for. Maybe you will find it in the places where you are an amateur (aren’t you glad to be an amateur!); maybe you will find it in love (I hope you are in love!); or maybe you’ll find it in that hobby you just found or returned to.