You probably beat me to it, but I only realised the following fact of life relatively recently: Everything can’t be fun all the time.
As I say, that might sound blindingly obvious to you, but it honestly wasn’t to me. Instead it was an upsetting truth I resisted and reluctantly accepted at a snail’s pace on my way to the ripe old age of 28 and 10 months.
Thinking back, I have no idea what gave me the impression that life was meant to be fun all the time. There was never a time when it was for me, and looking around I saw no evidence it was for others. But in my younger days I supposed I saw myself as the exception – the one who would finally buck the trend and have a good time all the time.
My chief aim in life for a long time was to feel as though every day were a paid-for trip to Alton Towers every day. Anything less and life was clearly cheating me.
Well, I’ve wised up now, in fits and starts. The big change seemed to be that – over a very long period of time – instead of demanding life give me good day after good day after good day whether I deserved it or not, I just stopped giving a shit about what kind of day it was. And I started to look at my role was in what kind of day I had. Was I dwelling on what was out of my control? Was I remembering to be grateful for the fact that the chances of me even being born were incredibly remote, and yet here I am?
I didn’t adjust my expectations – I stopped having them altogether.
And what I found on the other side is that whilst I might appear on the surface to be more dour and pessimistic than when I was younger, the truth is the opposite. Taking the days as they come and trying to do my best within them has made me far happier than expecting life to do all the work for me.