That Sounds Fun summary

How would you feel if you tried your best at something, only for someone to call your efforts amateurish? Perhaps you’d feel insulted. After all, we tend to use the word amateur to mean someone who is laughably unskilled at something. But have you ever thought that it might be good to be an amateur?

When the author looked up the word amateur in the dictionary, she discovered it has other meanings that most of us overlook. An amateur also describes someone who undertakes an activity for pleasure, rather than for profit. Now things start to look different. Being an amateur at something just means you’re doing it for fun!

How alive are you, right now, in this moment?

That might sound like a silly question. Of course you’re alive, or you wouldn’t be reading this sentence. But in a broader sense, are you really living in the present? Or do you often feel as if you’re just waiting for your life to begin? The author used to feel as if she was sacrificing her present happiness for the sake of a future. And this future wasn’t even sure to arrive.

A hobby is something fun we do on a regular basis in our leisure time. Sadly, though, not many adults have one. One time over dinner, the author asked her girlfriends if any of them had a hobby. A hush immediately fell over the table. And so she asked herself: why don’t more of us partake in the kind of joyful activities that sprinkle a little fun over our lives?

Perhaps the answer to this is that grown-up life gets in the way. Many of us give up our childhood hobbies in exchange for an adult life. The author’s father, for instance, was an avid chess player as a child and young man. But when his family arrived, along with a full-time job, he just quit playing. The first time she ever saw her father play was when she was an adult herself.

Sometimes we’re only pretending to be having fun. And the author knows all about that. She remembers the time she vacationed at a Christian retreat in Colorado, known as Lone Valley ranch. This should have been an incredible trip for her, with nothing but blue skies and the majestic rocky mountains in view. And yet, it didn’t go exactly to plan. 

The mistake she made was thinking she could treat her vacation like a garbage chute. She imagined herself disposing of all her emotional baggage as soon as she arrived. After shedding her baggage at the door, she thought she’d feel instantly lighter, and be ready to have some fun. But once she got to the ranch, she realized she felt as weighed down with worries over there as she did at home.