Eariler this week I stopped by the office of one of my instructors to say hello and to get some guidence on a subject that I want to study on my own. During the conversation I found myself saying things like "this is fun. that is not fun". To clarify, studying linguistics does not seem fun to me. Nethier does post-modernism or algebra. While I understand the importance of such subjects, I must admit that I would rather be studying something that in my opinion is "more fun". By the end of the meeting the instructor posed the question, "because life should be fun"? To which I responded "this should be fun because I am paying for it".I realize that I was probably not meant to spend much time thinking about the question, but I did,and now I am writing about it. Later that day I thought about it some more and wondered if I was being naive in my belief that college and life in general should be fun. Maybe I am; I don't know. I seldome find that people who are being naive ever know that they are being naive until way after the fact. However, I did realize that what I said was not what I meant. What I actually meant was this: While life cannot possibly always be fun, we should do our absolute best to make choices that will make us the happiest, thereby, taking control over the things we can control, and making life fun.
Before I changed my major to English, I was a Secondary Education major. I hated the education courses and lothed having to drive all over Shreveport/Bossier to go observe classrooms, which I rarely found helpful. I made the change, and am much happier now for it. I know that I cannot control everything, and that as an undergraduate liberal arts major I must sometimes take courses that I do not like, read books that I am not intrested in, and write papers about topics that I may care less about. But, when given the opportunity I feel that it is my responsibility to make choices that will make my life "more fun".
So, Readers, what do you think? Should life be fun???
I enjoyed this post immensely! You wrote, "Later that day I thought about it some more and wondered if I was being naive in my belief that college and life in general should be fun." Ii believe that YES, IT SHOULD!!!!! I posted several things on a similar subject a couple of months ago on my personal blog. Here's the link to those posts if you would like to see them. http://cnormrockwell.blogspot.com/2011/07/dr-phil-moment-with-keyboard.html and http://cnormrockwell.blogspot.com/2011/06/wake-up.html But my mindset on this subject, is that we have one life to live! Why shouldn't it be fun?! I don't want anyone to tell me WHY I should do something or WHAT I should do with my life. I want to know that everything I CHOSE to do in my life is because I WANTED to do it. Because it was something that I really believed in and saw as worth chasing after, standing behind and fighting for. Call that naive, call that silly; but it's an idea I feel strongly about and.... would stand behind and fight for. The Naivety Circle. Welcome. Come join me. Haha
ReplyDeleteThinking this way is less common, and I'll admit, less realistic. But I believe, it is the only way that I would like to live my life. I just want to feel something. I would rather feel extreme fun and extreme boredom than to be blindly unaware of the existence of either.
I too was an education major. But not any longer. I just could not relate to the classes. Part of me wants to say its just not for me, yet I can see myself teaching one day, then the other part of me is blaming the program in general for not relating more to actual teaching. But I'm like you now much happier & excited about the openness of my degree!
ReplyDeleteFrom my experience, much of life is NOT fun--it's interesting, it's challenging, it's frustrating, etc. When you can choose, choose "fun" if that helps. But mostly, we learn to deal. We need fun to get us through all the other stuff.
ReplyDeleteK. Smith
Eng. 226