Immersion—Doing What You Love
So many of us engage in activities to get a reaction, or to make money, or to feel loved. But what are the things you do because you love doing them? What do you do just for yourself—because it gives you pleasure or is meaningful?
Our motivations for what we do with our lives are worth exploring. They can provide a filter through which we can evaluate how we spend our time and may lead us toward a more rewarding set of activities. For example, we all have to make a living—that is a key motivator for most people—but would you pursue your career if money were not a factor? If not, how else would you spend your days?
What you do with your time outside your job should be as important and intentional as your work. Are you just filling the hours, or are you getting something back? What activities would you engage in even if you didn’t get any external, positive benefit? What activities do you do just for you?
Money? What’s money?
Imagine a world where money didn’t exist—where all your material needs were met, and you had access to virtually anything you’d want. Recreation, travel, and entertainment were all provided for free. You might think that you’d travel the world, go to museums, lay on beaches and basically do what you do when you’re on vacation in the real world. But how realistic is this? Wouldn’t you eventually yearn for a life that gives something back—a life that contributes to the greater good in some way?
People used to think that being independently wealthy and “living on Easy Street” were goals in and of themselves. As long as you have the means, how you actually spend your time doesn’t really matter—you can do whatever you want. But what you do matters—it’s not obvious what activities will be fulfilling and give your life meaning. They’re different for everyone. Some people may be happy laying on the beach drinking daiquiris for the rest of their lives. For them, that is doing what they love. But I would argue that almost everyone would eventually feel like they’re missing something if they didn’t do anything meaningful. People need a sense of balance in their lives. One way to think about this directly is by answering the following questions: Would you still do what you are doing now if you lived in a world without money? If not, what would you do?
Finding the things you love
Because so much of our lives are driven by economics, societal expectations, and the quest for praise or respect, it can be difficult to cut through all that and find what you love. When you go on vacation, you may engage in activities that are fun at the time—not because they truly speak to you, but because they represent a break from consistent effort (such as laying on a beach), or because they’re different (place-specific recreation, for example). You may fully enjoy these activities at the time, but they might not be something that you feel you truly love and were born to do.
So, what are those things for you? They may be something you’re already doing, or they may be something that’s never occurred to you—something completely new. But as you’re thinking about what you love, make sure you don’t discount activities that are hard yet rewarding.
Loving what you do
It’s important to remember that some of the activities you love may not be strictly pleasurable. In fact, if they don’t involve some element of challenge or difficulty, they may not be something you’ll stick to in the long-term. Many things in life are extremely rewarding but involve regular headaches and hassles. It can be easy to focus on these negatives instead of emphasizing what is rewarding and meaningful about them. This can be true of your job, your family, or anything in your life that is part of your day-to-day.
One of my favorite quotes related to this is from Lemmy Kilmister, the bass player for the band, Motörhead. He was the only remaining member of the band, and in the face of falling record sales and decreased visibility, he was asked why he continued. He replied, “Dogged idiocy—I’m not doing it for you; I’m doing it for me.” He loved what he did, and he continued to do it completely. He immersed himself in it, despite the headaches, drama, and challenges.
Losing yourself
When you’re in a place where you have a good idea of what you love to do, you should find ways to immerse yourself in those activities. Spending time doing what you love is akin to a spa treatment or detox—it’s like therapy for the soul. It revitalizes and refuels you and calibrates your head and heart to your essential self.
What does immersion mean? It means finding a space where you have uninterrupted time to engage in the activity, beginning to end. In this context, “uninterrupted” means more than not being bothered by people, events, or thoughts; it’s stopping everything, taking a deep breath, and shaking everything else loose. It can be for an hour, a couple of days, even a couple of weeks—or, like Lemmy, it can last a lifetime.
When you are able to truly immerse yourself in what you love and be completely present, you’ll find that everything else drops away, and time becomes meaningless. You’ll become one with what you’re doing—to the exclusion of everything else.
