Try Something That Terrifies You (But in a Fun Way)

At some point, I realized that I had no idea who I was outside of my responsibilities. I had titles, deadlines, routines, expectations — but not a single thing in my life that existed just for the joy of it. When you’ve been in survival mode long enough, “fun” starts to feel like a foreign language — one you used to speak fluently as a kid, but forgot somewhere between your first burnout and your latest attempt at being a high-functioning adult.

And then I got on a motorcycle.

To be clear: I had no idea what I was doing. I was terrified. But for the first time in what felt like forever, I wasn’t thinking about my to-do list, or my inbox, or what other people expected from me. I was just there — fully present, fully alive, fully on the edge of either a breakthrough or a breakdown (jury’s still out). It didn’t matter. It was mine. And that’s the point.

New hobbies are not about being good at something. They’re about getting out of your head and back into your body. They’re about reminding yourself that life isn’t a project to optimize, but a playground to explore. Whether it’s riding a motorcycle, painting something terrible, taking a ceramics class, learning how to make sushi, or growing a plant without killing it — try something that reconnects you to being a person, not just a performer.

There’s something magical about doing something that serves no practical purpose. It’s like flipping the middle finger to the productivity cult and saying, “I don’t need a reason. I just want to feel alive again.”

So here’s your invitation: do the thing. Try the weird thing. The scary thing. The thing that makes you laugh at yourself. The thing that reminds you you’re more than your schedule.

Because sometimes, joy is just on the other side of “What if I fail?”

And sometimes, that joy has two wheels and a growl.