33. It’s Not About Like

How To Be A Person -- the Newsletter for Monday, September 2nd, 2024.

My life has been me doing a series of things I didn’t really like: acting, I was always nervous, I never liked it. I just had to do it. I was compelled. University: I didn’t know what else to do so I went when my parents suggested it. Auditioning, no one likes doing that. Exercise, see above. Taking risks, public dancing, meeting new people. Who likes sticking their neck out?

Then there are the things you don’t know you won’t like until you do them: marriage, mortgage, renovations, spending time with people that aren’t your friends but your kids are friend’s with their kids; the oppression of school pick-up and drop-off.

If someone had told me it’s not about the like I wouldn’t have understood what they were talking about. Adulthood is about doing things while holding your nose. Admin, taxes, driving kids to three soccer practices a week, playing Thomas the Tank, standing in a line in a Shopper’s to buy pull-ups at 10 o’clock at night while being forced to listen to Ed Sheeran on those tiny ceiling speakers.

My kids never had this model.