Enjoyable misery

Bahá’ís fast for nineteen days each March, purely out of devotion. (Image by Ekaterina Vysotina)

I am doing everything wrong on social media.

As a creator, I’m supposed to have a niche. As a business owner, I’m supposed to have a clear offer.

I’m supposed to post in three different categories: one third education, one third inspiration, and one third promotion.

And I’m supposed to repurpose or even re-post existing content.

Look: I just don’t want to do these things. I don’t know why. But I don’t. I want to post what I want to post. I want to be free.

I’m approaching it like an artist. But not a professional artist. Because an artist who makes a living with their art is supposed to promote their existing work instead of continually releasing new stuff. Your fans want to be able to sing along with the songs they know when you go on tour.

So really, I’m approaching content creation as a passionate hobby.

And I’m here to advocate for the idea that that is perfectly fine. I wish I had started doing it a long time ago.

I can’t tell you what a relief it has been to get my ideas out into the world, as though I had a bunch of ingrown hairs just waiting for the tweezers. To be able to scroll through a bunch of videos or written pieces and say, “I made these,” and then make another one — it’s so satisfying. The creating and sharing is an end in itself.

Even though my raison d’être runs afoul of what the gurus think it should be, I trust myself. I’m really not that weird. The person who goes out for a run is not doing it for transportation purposes — they make a big loop around the neighborhood. The weight lifter, despite a passion for lifting things, hires movers when it’s time to relocate to a bigger apartment. We do things that seem purposeless all the time.

But it goes deeper. The person who goes out for a run doesn’t want to get a ride home. The weight lifter wants the weights to be heavy and difficult to lift. These athletes want the work to be hard for the sake of being hard. They want to develop their stamina and strength by challenging themselves as intensely as possible within specified parameters. It’s an enjoyable kind of misery.

Speaking of enjoyable misery, how about children? To have them in the first place is to choose the harder path. And people make it even harder, from natural childbirth to homeschooling to telling their teenagers that they can’t have a smartphone. As joyful as it may be, none of it is meant to be efficient, easy, or a means to an end.

For me, it’s been liberating to write for the sake of writing, network for the sake of networking, and show up on camera for the sake of learning how to show up on camera. I don’t necessarily know where these things are leading, but I’m having fun.

In some aspects, I’ve chosen the long, hard road. But I’m not looking for ease along the way — I’m ultimately looking for transformation. Even when the going is tough, I’m eager see what’s around the bend, and that keeps me moving.

We all have our reasons for wanting to do things. We may not realize that our reasons are different from someone else’s — we just have a nagging sense that we’re not getting out of an activity what we were hoping for. If what you’re doing isn’t satisfying, it may be because you’ve adopted someone else’s aims instead of your own. Figuring out what you want, even when it seems weird or illogical, changes the game.