On why I enjoy doing certain things

List top 10 things, that you really enjoy doing! I tried doing this exercise and found myself confused on the definition of ‘enjoyment in doing things’. I started asking these questions to myself:

• “What do we mean by enjoyment?”
• “Are there more than one types of enjoyment?” e.g. Are people referring to the same thing when they say “I enjoy a good cup of morning coffee” versus when they say “I enjoy working hard”
• “Why do some people enjoy taking pains or being disciplined?” or on a darker note “Why do some people enjoy seeing others in pain”
• “On what I enjoy doing, am I voluntarily choosing these activities or are they a part of my personality and I’m simply attracted to them and discovering that attraction?”.

This confused me further and I tried to remeber my school and college days to figure out what kind of subjects, activities, ideas, and people was I attracted to and what may have been the cause. I continued walking on this thought trail up to the more recent parts of my life.

Based on these reflections, I could see that there were few different and repeating themes which I decided to label as categories for types of enjoyable activities. Note that one activity could provide more than one type of enjoyment. Disclaimer: These are simply some notes to self (to try to think more clearly):

1. Growing my world map: Actions which help me explore new aspects of knowledge about the world provide a sense of enjoyment as they makes me feel more connected and more powerful (in terms of possessing that knowledge which enhahnces my current knowledge or might be useful in itself). My understanding is that we enjoy having new experiences if they are not painful. Sometimes, we even overestimate the pain of a new experience and then after having the experience, revisit and change our calculation (reducing the expected pain and increasing the expected payoff). As we age, unfortunately for some people, the fear of trying new experiences/experiences that don’t align with their world-view/identity becomes so high that this rate of growth of world map becomes slow.
2. Growing a skill and using a skill I’m good at: There are skills where I think I am really good and using them/improving them improves the sense of my own value of my usefulness. A follow up question pops in my head — How did I grow the skill in the first place? Is it a circular loop where I enjoyed these skills from the start which is why I kept growing? Or, can this enjoyment be cultivated for multiple skills? One answer is that if you’re able to do it better than most but not all people around you, you’ll continue trying harder and improving.
3. Getting social acceptance/recognition: Actions which provide social acceptance. I realize that a lot of behaviour get unconsciously internalised and there are some that one chooses consciously. For example, when you decide to watch that new TV series or follow that podcast so you can be a part of conversations around them. One might not enjoy the initial watching part but when they get into the conversation, the enjoyment starts and encourage the action.
4. Identity reinforcement: Things that re-inforce our worldview or way of thinking (our identity) are enjoyable. Watching your country do well in a sporting event, reading an article which reinforces an ideology that you personally believe in, and getting admiration from someone you value.
5. Momentary awareness: This category is based on certain transient experiences of feeling really aware. I’ve had such experiences in new places/with new people, in extremely happy situations, even in some day to day situations, and a lot of time while watching sunsets.
6. Zoning out of conscious thinking: Things like books, movies, video games, and playing sports transport us to a different world. They hold our attention and for the time we’re actively engaged. In case of games and sports, there is value in the enjoyment of outcome. In case of books and movies there is value in the understanding of content. In all these cases the intensity of action is so high that you stop being in active thinking state.
7. Identity growth: Good habits like reading, working out, eating healthy make us feel good not only because we value the achievement of health, personality growth, mental growth which we get from doing these activities; We also value them like promises we keep to ourselves.

I am writing this down a) to be more aware of the choices I make and my motivations behind them and b) to try to understand the inner workings of the mechanism which cultivates these choices. In case of any suggestions/remarks, please feel free to leave comments.