Find things you enjoy
What Does It Mean to Enjoy?
Once I was working in a fast food restaurant, a fast-paced, pretty tough place to enjoy life. At some point, while flipping burgers, I accepted the fact that the grill would be my daily reality for 8 hours a day. I started to feel okay with that. I didn’t feel joy, though. It was all about speed, just like on a production line, and it made me feel like a machine. But there was this guy who had been flipping burgers for years, and he was fast. He worked at a tempo of 1.5, and he actually enjoyed it.
That made me curious about his approach because, in a way, he was happy with what he was doing, and I wasn’t. He just kept going faster and faster, but with ease. Of course, the quality in fast food and in a good restaurant is totally different. It’s like comparing a local bar band to a philharmonic orchestra. So, I realized if you want to understand why someone loves what they do, it’s best to ask those who treat their work like playing in that orchestra, rather than someone just grinding away in a suburban bar.
I remember when I was searching for the perfect burger in Reykjavík and was disappointed with many places. Then I found this one spot where the burger made me think, "Wow, this is it." I kept going back, again and again. Eventually, my curiosity got the best of me, and I asked the waiter who made them.
The chef was sitting at a nearby table, so I went over and asked him what the secret was that made the burger so good.
He started to reply with a list of mechanical things:
"Good quality food, good machine, good preparation..."
He gave a lot of technical explanations about how everything was done. But then he summed it up with:
"I love what I do."
And that was it—the secret ingredient. If you truly want to make something great, you’ll find a way. When you love what you do, that joy comes through, and other people can feel it too.
Enjoy the Things You Do
Imagine using your body as an instrument for the actions that need to be done in the situation you find yourself in, and you are the player. Like playing music on a guitar: first, you play some notes, then some chords, and once you master the tempo, you can go beyond the basics. So, you have the grill, the meat, the spices, the tools — and when you learn how to make it all work, it might not feel great at first, but with time, there comes a moment when everything starts to click.
Maybe you steam milk, and serve coffees, improve the moves. Maybe you are a waiter, and work with your words choose them more aware. Maybe you work in advertisment, filmmaking, or as a tourguide? Think about actions that you take and how you make them, what can you improve, what sounds right and what sounds wrong?
Compare yourself to an instrument, where emotions and care for things are the music. If I play any instrument, I know I have to practice; I’m aware of disharmonies and mistakes in rhythm. If I listen to myself, I can practice. Instead of repeating the same mistakes, I can focus on the parts that don’t sound right until I reach harmony.
Enjoying the play comes when you start to understand the basics and see what can be improved.
I can be both critical and understanding of myself. Comparing myself to others is a great recipe for living an unhappy life. Everyone has their own journey. Some people had a better start—yes, they had music from an early age and have musical predispositions, a way of hearing the music in a way that might seem impossible for me to reach, but!
I can practice on my own. If I treat myself as an instrument and try to tune myself up, working on my thinking, I can reach harmony in my thoughts and fix the things that aren’t working correctly.
Done is better than perfect. Perfect comes after something is done plenty of times.
Transformative moments will come. At first, they will bring a new sound, a new thought, and then you can practice it.
It Makes Sense to Work on Myself
Even if it’s hard to believe in yourself at this point, believe me—I was a shadow of a man back in 2010. If someone had told me then that my life would get better, I wouldn’t have believed them. I didn’t have any tools, no knowledge, no emotional education, and it was hard and took time. The Internet wasn’t as rich in possibilities for self-development, and it wasn’t easy to find the knowledge needed to learn about it.
You can shake off what’s holding you back, look for tools to learn anything you want, and download apps to help you learn so many things. Whatever you choose, I hope you make it. Because thinking was my passion, I can tell you that sometimes overthinking was hard to stop. Why I love writing is that it helps me get what’s in my head down on paper and see it as a piece of music.
“I have a room, I sorted my things, I cleaned up the apartment, and I’m preparing myself to…”
This may not be the best poetry, story, or memorable moment, but it can lead to great things. Beginnings of change are moments when you are preparing yourself for something new. Allow yourself to distance from the things that are bothering you, look at them from a different perspective, and think about what actions you can take to change your situation.
Write a Sentence
If you don’t like it, you can always erase it, but what if you do like it?
Write about things you enjoy—it will make you smile :)
Organize your thoughts. If it’s hard for you to write, that’s good. It means you have room to improve and can learn how to do it better. Write and journal about your day, your thoughts, and what drives the decisions you make.
What if you end up wanting to write more, and then take action on the things you enjoy?
