I Want to Be Interesting, Not Just Productive

Photo by Kristin Hardwick from StockSnap I don’t want to be productive. Okay, that’s a lie, I’d actually love to be productive. If I could, I’d wake up early every morning, have a balanced breakfast, always show up early, have a spotless room, and somehow manage to get 8 hours of sleep every night. But that’s just not who I am, and that is not bad thing. In our culture, I’ve noticed the obsession with rushing through life, just for the sake of becoming the best at something. College students in particular are under an immense amount of pressure to pass all their classes, work multiple jobs, get that internship that will propel them into a career field that, at the ripe age of nineteen, they may not even be sure they want to pursue yet. As a nineteen year old college student myself, I have absolutely no interest in rushing through these next few years. Instead, I want my college experience to be full of stories, embarrassing memories, and spontaneous adventures. I don’t want to be remembered for being “the best” at something. I want to be recognized for having a million weird interests, or making people laugh, or wearing cool outfits. When did Everything become self-Improvement? Alex Frank / Spoon As a society, we tend to preoccupy ourselves with optimizing every moment of our lives, including our hobbies. We don’t just cook, we cook with the intention of learning a new skill. We don’t just run, we run because it’s improving our health. And this mentality becomes more important than the hobby itself. When you find yourself preoccupied with mastering a specific recipe, or successfully completing a mile under a certain amount of minutes, it can suck all the joy out of the activity. Cooking could be chopping things up, throwing them in a pot, and potentially discovering your next favorite meal. Running could be a chance to clear your mind and take in the beauty and imperfections of the world around you. What you’re doing instead, is simply justifying the ways you spend your time, rather than just saying “because I enjoy it”. Of course, this mindset likely stems from the content we see on social media. When you open up instagram, you are bombarded by the success and accomplishments of people your own age, maybe even younger, and it makes you feel like you’re falling behind. Then, just like that, productivity is now a fad, and we see TikToks that begin with “spend a productive day with me” and “5 AM morning routine” and “Do a room reset with me.” The irony here is that the viewers are actually procrastinating by watching someone else perform productivity, which to me is kind of amusing. Like seriously? You’re laying in bed watching a 22 year old organize her fridge and telling yourself the you’re “getting motivated”?? Another great example is people monetizing their hobbies. Think about all those young adults starting jewelry businesses, or photography companies, or doing people’s nails, because if you’re good at something, why not make money off it, right? This can absolutely work for a while. I know many people who have started fairly successful small and local businesses doing something they love, and I think that’s incredible, but how long will it stay that way? This summer, I offered my coworkers some of my homemade cake pops, and I was quite surprised by how many people asked me “how much are they?” I immediately reassured them that they were free, and that it was my joy to share with everybody. After trying them, I was told by multiple coworkers that I should start a baking business, and I definitely considered the idea, but one of my biggest fears in venturing forward with that idea is that baking will become something I no longer enjoy, and it will just be about the money. Burnout is productivity’s biggest enemy, and it can also rob you of joy as well. Therefore, I will continue baking for family, friends, and for myself, whenever the desire strikes me, completely free of charge. And again, there’s nothing wrong with turning a passion into a career, but not every hobby needs to become a side hustle. What boggles my mind the most is that even rest has become productive. I’m always hearing about these glamorized versions of rest like “self care” and “digital detox” that can make it feel like even something as simple as relaxing is something that needs to be done correctly. I’m going to hold your hand when I say this, but it’s okay to be lazy every now and then. There’s no need to justify your own exhaustion by turning it into “30 minutes of intentional rest”, just take a nap, or flop down on the floor, take your time, daydream a little, you will be okay. I think the root cause of productivity culture has nothing to do with loving accomplishment, but rather stems from this fear of wasting time that a lot of us have. We all know that life is not infinite, and someday, we will all inevitably run out of time, and that scares us. So when you’re watching tv, or hanging out with friends, or doomscrolling, you suddenly get hit with this wave of guilt that you’re wasting your life away. But what if I told you that time doesn’t have to produce something to have value? Some of the best parts of life are inherently inefficient. Talking to a friend for 3 hours on FaceTime, getting coffee and wandering around afterward, listening to that one album on repeat, sitting outside, going down a fascinating internet rabbit hole, or trying something new and finding out you’re terrible at it. None of these things will make you smarter, richer, or more employable, but they certainly will make your life more enjoyable. Maybe that’s why I want to be interesting rather than just productive. The most interesting people I’ve met aren’t usually the ones who optimize every moment of their lives, they’re the people who are funny, kind, and curious enough to end up in situations that end up becoming the best stories in the future. Being interesting requires uselessness Anna Schultz / Her Campus First, a little disclaimer: this is not me telling you to stop pursing meaningful goals. When I use the term useless, I means anything that does not have an obvious practical benefit. Things like rewatching a favorite movie over and over again, having a niche collection, or learning obscure facts about a random topic. None of these things are necessarily useful, but they absolutely give you personality. When I think about my friends and what makes each of them interesting, their major, gpa, or number of internships are never the first things I think about. Instead, I think about how one of my friends owns multiple unusual pets, or another friend who posts the most hilarious videos on her close friends story that serve no purpose other than making people laugh, or someone I knew in high school who could name any note after hearing it once on the piano. These people are memorable because of their specificity, not their accomplishments. Your little quirks are what make you interesting. You may find yourself wondering, How do I obtain little quirks like this? And a lot of it just comes from curiosity. If everything you do must be practical or useful, you’re naturally going to eliminate a lot of opportunities before you even try them. Instead, shift your mindset into trying new things because you’re curious about them. Try pottery! Attempt to learn your favorite song on the guitar! Go to that party! Even if these things all end up being something you never want to do again, at least you had the experience. Not everything you try needs to become a skill or routine. College is a great time to embrace uselessness. We’re young adults, still figuring out how to exist independently, with a lot of external pressure to have our whole lives figured out. Because of this, a lot of students miss the opportunities around campus to truly explore different parts of themselves. I highly encourage you to try and build a portion of your college experience around yourself, not your career. Take a random elective just because you think it sounds cool, attend campus events, join a club that has nothing to do with your major. You might not gain anything for your resume, but you absolutely will gain a new friend, a new hobby, or a new memory! College is more than career preparation Photo by Zen Chung from Pexels As someone who has been through freshman year of college, and has worked with hundreds of incoming freshman this past summer as an orientation leader, I can confidently tell you, the pressure starts immediately. Freshmen students, some of whom haven’t even experienced their high school graduation yet, come to campus for Orientation, and are immediately bombarded with information about tuition, class scheduling, networking, career planning, and it can be really overwhelming. Even now, I get asked what my major is every time I meet someone new on campus, and I tell them, and the question that always follows is “what do you plan on doing with that?” and to be completely honest, I still have yet to make up my mind. Oftentimes, college can even make extracurriculars feel like resume entries. In high school, you joined clubs for fun, in college, you going clubs for leadership experience. There’s nothing wrong with this mindset, but it definitely makes college feel like one giant job interview. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s completely okay to explore opportunities irrelevant to your major. Just because you’re a biology major doesn’t mean you can’t join the theatre club, or take a poetry class, or play a sport. Don’t feel the need to justify everything you take part in with how it will benefit your career, just do what makes you happy! Besides, having interests outside your field of expertise will make you a more well-rounded individual, which could absolutely benefit you professionally in the long run. One piece of advice I have especially for new college students is to give yourself permission to be a beginner. College is an excellent opportunity to try something new surrounded by people who are also still figuring things out. Don’t let the people in the room who have been working at a particular skill for years scare you away from trying it. Instead, take the opportunity to get to know them, they probably have some valuable advice for you. And most importantly, don’t expect to ever be like them, because you don’t need to be, that’s a part of the point. You are allowed to be bad at something without turning it into a growth opportunity. Another thing college students tend to do is turn making memories into just another productivity metric. This is especially relevant today with everything being posted to social media, it makes having fun become competitive. You open instagram and see what all your peers did over the weekend, and suddenly you find yourself worried that you don’t go out enough, or that you don’t have enough friends. It’s so easy to get caught up in having the “college experience” that it creates this paradox that even your spontaneity needs to be optimized. But the truth is, the true college experience doesn’t look like a movie, it’s going to get food with a friend after class, walking around campus at sunset, or laughing so hard that your stomach hurts. Ordinary moments create the greatest memories. All of this being said, I do understand the obsession with career preparation in a college setting. Your career is important, your grades are important, your resume is important, but at the end of the day, you are a person before a professional. You’re allowed to spend these years exploring things simply for your own enjoyment. These things may not help you land your dream internship, but they absolutely will play a role in creating a future you can’t wait to wake up to. Let yourself have lore Unsplash We need to start letting ourselves have lore. I’m serious. That weird job you had, the obscure interest you have, the stranger met once, got to know really well, and then never saw again. All of this is your lore. It doesn’t have to be impressive, just amusing, unconventional, and unexpected. One of my favorite questions to ask people is “what is something about you that most people wouldn’t expect?” because it gives them the opportunity to share something beyond the surface level questions like major, hometown, or favorite color. I also notice when someone seems hesitant to answer that question, and that could be for one of two reasons, the first being that they may not be comfortable sharing, which is totally fine, but the other reason is because they genuinely draw a blank when it comes to identifying something about themselves that is remotely interesting. The second one can be fixed, and the easiest way to do that is to simply stop questioning whether something is worth doing. Don’t ask “Is this useful?” ask “Would this make a good story?” Now obviously this doesn’t apply to every decision you make, I’m not telling you to start making poor financial decisions or something of that nature just to develop lore. Think harmless things, like dyeing your hair, introducing yourself to someone new, or going on a spontaneous road trip. You never know what stories you might be able to tell in the future. But what if you regret it? Failure and regret are part of the lore. We often think experiences only count if they went well. But some of the greatest stories start with “this was a terrible idea”. You tried something and failed, you got lost, you embarrassed yourself. Sure, it wasn’t the best feeling at the moment, but someday you can look back, laugh it off, and reflect on how that experience made you a more interesting person. Because let’s be honest, a perfectly executed life with no mistakes whatsoever would not make a very interesting story. Sometimes, you may not want to share your story with everybody, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Your lore does not need to become content. There’s no need to present photographic evidence, or repeat what happened in detail to everyone you meet if it doesn’t feel right. Some memories just belong to you and the people who were there, and that’s beautiful. So why do I want to be interesting instead of productive? Because productivity is just something that can be measured, but being interesting is something that will be remembered. Your resume might tell potential employers where you graduated from, what work experience you have, or what you have accomplished, but your experiences will tell people who you were as a person while you were achieving all these things. I still want to be successful. I hope that while I am in college and beyond, I will have many accomplishments I am proud of, and I have a stable and fulfilling career, and I recognize that it takes work to have those things. What I don’t want is for my work to be the only evidence that I was here. I want to have spontaneous adventures, niche hobbies, and the ability to look back on my college years and know I lived them not trying to be the best, but trying to be myself. Check out similar articles: The Pressure To Be Perfectly Productive: https://www.hercampus.com/school/sbu/the-pressure-to-be-perfectly-productive Returning To My Interests: https://www.hercampus.com/school/george-mason-university/returning-to-my-interests

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