Knowing What You Don’t Like
I finally had the opportunity to go downhill skiing for the first time as an adult this year. I hadn’t tried skiing since I was 14 years old. So we are talking well over 30 years ago.
I live about three hours away from a decent ski resort and our family decided to take advantage of that and give a ski trip a try. My son had never gone skiing. My daughter had been up there for a couple of field trips, so she had some experience. My wife hadn’t skied in a long time either but she at least knew how to do it. So we were coming at this from a variety of different experience levels.
That said, we booked a private lesson.
This two hour lesson worked out well for everyone in the family, most notably my daughter. She was able to ski down the hill and keep going before the first 15 minutes of our lesson was through. My wife and son took about another 45 minutes to get themselves sorted.
I never made it past the first stage.
I was holding up my wife and son, so I encouraged the instructor to move forward with them while I tried to do what I could on my own. I gave the hill a couple of more chances – while getting the continuous advice from others that “it’s way easier to learn when you’re younger” – and on the last trip up the hill I decided that I was done.
Once I made that call, my frustration turned to fulfillment.
I didn’t like downhill skiing so I decided to stop doing it. Rather than let my own dislike for skiing affect me and my family, I just let it go. I focused on what I knew I did like: seeing my family happy.
My family was having a great time. My son was skiing and enjoying it. My daughter was really skiing and enjoying it. They were happy. I was happy.
I happily waited for my family back where we began the lesson, building a small snowman while sitting in the snow.
We tend to think about how important it is for us to know what we like to do. That way we can do more of those things.
But it’s also really important to know what you don’t like to do.
Sure, there are some things that you’re going to need to do regardless of whether you like to do them or not – but there are plenty of things that you never need to do again if you don’t want to.
I think downhill skiing is one of those things. (At least for me it is.)
So if you’re ever putting together one of those “bucket lists” – a list of things you’d like to do before you die –why not put together a list of the things that you don’t like to do? These are things you don’t have any interest in doing now or ever again.
When you put that kind of list together you won’t squander time on things you really shouldn’t be giving your time and attention to. Instead, you can give more of your time and attention to those things you know you like to do.
Given the choice between frustration and fulfillment, I’ll choose fulfillment every single time. Wouldn’t you?
