I recently took my 6-year-old daughter to her first movie theatre experience. It had been years since I'd gone to one myself. As we walked to find our seats, I felt a rush of excitement, wonder, and nostalgia all at once. Buying the bucket of popcorn (and cotton candy for her), the excitement of the lights dimming, the anticipation of the movie starting, everyone locked in on a shared experience, and then walking out, rehashing what we just watched. In the current world of Netflixes and Hulus, entertainment is at our fingertips anytime. The novelty of the movie theatre experience seems to have disappeared for a lot of people.
I was reminded how magical and simple an experience going to the movies is, and I thought, 'Why don't we do this more?' I'd let the shine of growing up with that experience wear off, replaced by the convenience of streaming TV. Mindless convenience takes over instead of intentional planning. Comfort and familiarity trump commitment. I'd forgotten why experiences like this mattered in the first place.
When we start or experience something new, there's an undeniable rush, an excitement, and motivation.
We land a new job and feel energized by the possibilities ahead. There’s cool swag, a different vibe, and we meet our team. Everything represents potential and fresh accomplishment.
We join the gym and feel inspired by the shiny equipment, energetic classes, and fancy coffee bar. We’re pumped about this new part of our routine, and it’s going to be great.
We meet a new friend, maybe a potential love interest, and feel that spark of connection, and the world feels brighter.
But then the inevitable happens. Disillusionment.
We’ve been at the job long enough to see how the sausage is made. We discover that the company's inspiring mission doesn't always align with daily operations.
The drive to the gym feels “too long”, the gym is “too crowded”, and the spin instructor’s voice starts to become “too annoying”.
We realize the friend or dating partner has annoying habits we didn't see at first, and they’re becoming exhausting.
The honeymoon phase ends, and the excitement fizzles. We may become cynical. We start thinking about another job, a different hobby, about finding something that will give us back that hopeful feeling we had at the beginning.
Rinse, wash, repeat.
The mistake we make is confusing initial excitement with the underlying value that drove us to start in the first place. Excitement can be temporary. The value, the why, that's what can sustain us when things lose their lustre. The true reasons we do something don’t disappear just because the imperfect reality hits.
I took my daughter to the movies because I wanted her to feel what I felt growing up, that sense of occasion, of being fully immersed. That reason didn't change when we had to leave the comfort of our couch, and the snacks were way overpriced. We start new jobs because we want to build something meaningful, learn new skills, find a sense of purpose, and support our families. Those reasons don't disappear when the job gets boring or frustrating, but we let the latter two dictate our decision to leave.
Remembering our reasons for starting something requires consistent effort and discipline, sometimes improvising, especially when motivation is low, and progress feels minute. We need to stop telling ourselves the “magic” is gone when, really, we’ve just stopped doing the work that made it magical in the first place.
When the long ruck march begins, and we feel like we’re merely just putting one foot in front of the other, we would do ourselves a solid by just asking some earnest questions:
What mattered to me enough to start in the first place?
What need am I trying to meet?
What did I hope would change?
The answers to those questions are our real why. And they’re probably still true. Within those is where value actually lives. The things worth doing are worth doing even after the shine wears off. Especially then, because that's when you find out if you were chasing excitement or building something real. And the $20 cotton candy will always be worth it either way.
