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

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.