Being ok with pleasure or fun where one finds it seems like the absolute way to go.
But this can be a funny thing.
Serendipitously, we are often disappointed by things we build up our minds. Yet something simple and organic can surprise us.
A trip to Disney World, for example, may fall flat. You had grand expectations. But the reality was long lines, tired legs, large crowds, unbearable humidity, and grumpy children.
On the other end, I vividly remember with great fondness and pleasure sitting on a park bench with my mom in Mürren Switzerland. The scenery was beautiful. The sun was warm and I was tired from walking. We stopped and sat without saying much, and the short time we spent on that bench was a perfect moment of relaxation and enjoyment.
It’s a special memory 25 years later.
Seek fun things – of course – but remember that they often come to you instead.
WE DON’T NORMALLY associate the late, great French leader Charles de Gaulle with merriment, but he was once heard to say that “One must take one’s fun where one finds it.” I have lost track of the biography in which that remark appears, but I certainly can agree with the general, while possibly adding the caveat that movie premieres and awards ceremonies, whether glossy or drab, are events where one is very unlikely to have anything that could accurately be called fun.
