Why Do I Enjoy Doing Things I'm Not Great At?

If you ask what goes on in my head at 3 a.m., this is it. Cristiano is on TV doing his thing. Croatia is getting robbed. And somewhere in there, my brain starts thinking about why I suck at things that I enjoy doing?.

Let me take you back a little. I write two kinds of articles. Technical ones, which come naturally to me. And the ones which I call business ones (well, the not-so-technical).

I spend most of my time on the business articles. I enjoy writing them. I enjoy reading them back too. And just so you know, I'm not writing all these articles for you. I write to document things. Technical posts are usually just answers to questions people keep asking me. Instead of explaining the same thing again, I write it once and send the link. Someone once told me that the best way to really learn something is to teach it to someone else, or even just say it out loud to a wall (You should be doing the same; trust me, it helps). So this blog is my wall. Turns out my wall has people sitting on it. That's you.

Anyway. Back to the real question.

The real question is about my own head

I think "Why do I enjoy things I'm not great at" is the wrong way to say it. The better question is: why do I think I enjoy things I'm not great at? Because this whole idea lives in my head. And the stats page just proved me wrong.

Here's what happened. I looked at the numbers on my published articles. I don't usually do this, because I write for myself, not for the numbers. But numbers don't lie. My technical articles get read a lot more than my business ones. And the business ones are the ones I enjoy writing the most.

Maybe it's the people around me. Most of them are technical, so maybe the technical stuff feels more exciting to them. Fair enough. But that only explains the blog. It doesn't explain the rest of my life.

It's not just about writing

I like playing soccer. I'm honestly the last person you'd want on your team. I'm bad. I won't pretend otherwise. But do I enjoy playing? Yes. A lot. I also like running. I'm not fast at all. But I still love doing it.

Put that next to the writing, and you can see the pattern. The things I'm good at, like technical writing, get the attention. The things I enjoy, like business writing, soccer, and running slowly, don't need attention to feel worth doing. I'd do them anyway.

So will I stop?

You might be wondering. No, I won't. The Robert Mugabe in me doesn't care. If anything, I'll keep doing what I enjoy more than what people find impressive. The numbers can do whatever they want.

Does this happen to you too?

So here's my question for you. Do you also enjoy things you're not good at? Do you keep doing them anyway, even when people notice your other skills more?

Let me know in the comments.

Comments

[Abhinav Kumar]

I don't know why, but that urge happens with me also.

[Tawanda Nyahuye]

You just have to keep on doing what you like the most no matter what