Track Changes

Living in London isn’t always easy. How does anyone have time to fit in all those new restaurants, bars and nights out? I’m saying this rhetorically. I haven’t done those things for the last fifteen years or so.

But I do find living in London can be stressful. It’s so big, and it can be overwhelming. But my friend Katie thinks she has it figured out. “Living in London, I have it figured out,” she said to me one day so that’s how I knew she had it figured out.

“You live in your part of London like you live in a town. You try to do everything – your restaurants, bars, shops etc – in your little town. You make friends in your town. You don’t travel all over town to see your friends. You see them in your town.” And although it feels like Katie has a lot more friends than I’ll ever has I do think she is on to something.

The writer Brendan Leonard says that there are two types of people in the world: People who look for fun things to do, and people who make their own fun.

I am always leery of “there are two types of people in the world” statements, but I do think Brendan is onto something, in that we all have two ways to spend our spare time: looking for fun things to do, or making our own fun.

Looking for fun things to do is: using our spare time to click around Netflix or YouTube trying to find a new show or movie to watch, buying tickets to a concert, or going to an art gallery. Making our own fun is: taking our camera on a hike to shoot photos of mountains or trees, trying to perfect a pineapple fried rice recipe, or writing a short story.

Both of these are enjoyable ways to spend our time, but making your own fun never has any supply chain issues. You never find yourself saying “There’s nothing good on [streaming service X, Y, and/or Z] right now,” or “I don’t like any of the bands playing in town this month,” or “I saw all the stuff at the local galleries already during the art walk last week.”

If being creative is your source of fun, you just make something. Even if it’s the worst piece of garbage you’ve ever made, and you feel like it was a total waste of time (it wasn’t), at least you weren’t bored while you were doing it.