Becoming A Daring Dilettante

What is a Daring Dilettante? A Daring Dilettante is somebody who finds Delight in their activities. Whether they’re focused on a single passion such as cooking, or many passions such as cooking, writing, hiking and painting. The Daring part comes in when you stop hiding your passions from yourself and admit that you find joy and delight in your favorite activities. On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a “Daring” thing. Admitting that you find joy in cooking, what is the big deal? Admitting that you like to paint? Or hike? Or write? How is this daring, courageous or even hard?

Unfortunately, admitting that you find joy in anything these days is practically an act of courage. Finding pleasure in anything, whether it’s the exotic or the mundane is often criticized by the people around us and in many different ways. A woman who expresses her joy in cooking might hear: “Cooking? You have time for that? I can barely find time to pick up the take out on the way home from work!” Or “You like cooking? You are promoting feminine stereotypes! You are setting back the women’s movement!” A man who likes to cook might get the first line plus the following: “Cooking is a girl’s job.” Or, “Cooking is a waste of time. Unless it’s grilling. Grilling is manly.”

Painters might get pestered to show off their work and then receive unwanted/unneeded critiques. Writers, oh boy, writers hear: “So, have you published anything lately? Got a novel in the works? You’re not a real writer unless you get paid! How many hits does your blog get?” People who study philosophy will be told their pastime is a waste of time and on and on and on. Negative criticism is so in vogue these days.

So yes, admitting, even just to yourself, that you find joy in an activity, any activity can be a daring act of courage. Taking it a step further and trying to integrate that passion into your life so that it becomes part of your career or a business is even more so. This isn’t a competition though. Nobody here is keeping score. The goal of The Daring Dilettante is to encourage you, the reader to find your passion(s) and integrate them into your life so that you feel more fulfilled and experience more joy and contentment every day.

The first step in this process is identifying the activities that bring you joy. They put you “in the zone” or incite “flow”.  That means that when you are “doing the thing” time just flies by (as it often does when we’re having fun) as you lose yourself in the activity. All you have to do is be a little more mindful as you go about your daily routine or participate in various activities. It will probably be after the fact, but if you are paying attention, you will realize that something you are doing or just finished doing made you really happy and probably proud of yourself too. If you are a list maker like I am, you can keep a small notebook on hand and note down the activity, date, time and participants involved. Then you can look back and get a little perspective on things. Was it the activity itself or the people involved that made you enjoy it so much?

If that doesn’t work you can try an activity from “The Artist’s Way” By Julia Cameron. She calls it “Imaginary Lives”. The essence of the activity is this: Write down five or more lives that you wish you were living instead of your own. Would you be a doctor? Rodeo Cowboy? Painter? Writer? Photographer? Scientist? Imagine the day to day life of each person. What activities in that life are the ones that you are interested in? Next you try to find a way to live even a chunk of that life in your spare time. If you wish you were a photographer, carry a camera around and take pictures of beautiful scenes or wildlife or whatever moves you. Want to be a doctor? Go to the library and check out medical books. Volunteer at a hospital or nursing home. Etc. You get the idea.

Once you’ve narrowed down one or more things that you enjoy doing, the next step is to deliberately make time in your life to do those things! You may have to put it on your calendar or write it into a schedule. If you don’t feel safe (physically or emotionally) talking about your passion publicly then don’t. Just mark those times as busy or unavailable. It’s actually nobody’s business what brings you joy.

Doing things that make us happy is good for our physical and emotional health. When we have found activities that make us content in our day to day lives, we begin to win the battle against depression and anxiety that so many of us endure. Now, I’m not talking about clinical cases of mental illness caused by brain chemistry. That is a completely different situation that requires trained medical professionals. What I mean is when we feel as though we have not done enough with our lives. When we feel that we have failed to be successful.

As a personal example of what I mean I’ll tell you this about myself. Growing up I had this idea that 28 was going to be the “perfect age”. At 28 I’d be established in a career, I’d be married and I’d be ready to have my first child. In reality, at 28, I was working a dead end job that made decent money but wasn’t getting me anywhere. I was getting divorced and kids weren’t anywhere on the horizon. When I turned 29 I had failed to meet any of my personal benchmarks and without understanding why, I fell into a downward spiral. Depression and anxiety caught hold of me and wouldn’t let go. Nothing was “right” in my life. I got sick, suffered from insomnia and vicious mood swings and even developed a stubborn case of eczema that I battle to this day. At 29 I fell apart. At 30 I finally figured out why. And now, at 40 I have finally begun turning things around. I might have been able to do it faster if I’d had a professional to help me out along the way but I won’t even bore you with all of the excuses for not getting one.

Things are far from perfect now but I feel more joy and contentment in my day to day life than I have since my early twenties. I know what I enjoy doing. I know what I want to do and I have a firm definition of personal success. I have the Sassy Fairy to set an example for and I am determined to show her how to live her life with courage, compassion and decency.

If I’m lucky, she won’t be too stubborn to learn from her Mommy’s mistakes. I pray that from the start, she will build a life for herself based on her ideas of success and filled with activities and work in which she finds meaning and feels pride in accomplishing.

And that’s what I want for you too. So get out there, find what brings you joy and delight in your life and make it a part of your life.

References

Cameron, J. (1992,2002,2006,2007). The Complete Artist's Way. New York: Penguin.