The Happiness Project

by Gretchen Rubin

“fun” falls into three categories: challenging fun, accommodating fun, and relaxing fun. Challenging fun is the most rewarding but also the most demanding. It can create frustration, anxiety, and hard work. It often requires errands. It takes time and energy. In the end, however, it pays off with the most satisfying fun. Usually less challenging, but still requiring a fair bit of effort, is accommodating fun. A family trip to the playground is accommodating fun. Yes, it’s fun, but I’m really there because my children want to go. Was it Jerry Seinfeld who said, “There’s no such thing as ‘Fun for the whole family’”? Going to a family holiday dinner, even going to dinner and a movie with friends, requires accommodation. It strengthens relationships, it builds memories, it’s fun—but it takes a lot of effort, organization, coordination with other people, and, well, accommodation. Relaxing fun is easy. I don’t have to hone skills or take action. There’s very little coordination with other people or preparation involved. Watching TV—the largest consumer of the world’s time after sleeping and work—is relaxing fun. Research shows that challenging fun and accommodating fun, over the long term, bring more happiness, because they’re sources of the elements that make people happiest: strong personal bonds, mastery, an atmosphere of growth. Relaxing fun tends to be passive—by design. So if relaxing fun is the least fun kind of fun, why is watching TV so popular? Because although we get ...

relaxing fun challenging fun accomodating fun