Learn to do Something Fun in your Spare Time

       

You’ve heard of the personal enrichment classes offered at your community college, usually in the evenings.  The classes are filled with stay at home moms and retirees who dream of spicing up or changing the direction of their perceived unfulfilled lives.  They think ”Maybe I’m a dormant genius!”  The example that always comes to my mind when I think of personal enrichment classes is “The night was humid.” from Throw Mama From the Train.  Danny DeVito’s character, Owen, wants to be a writer so he signs up for the personal enrichment class where Billy Kristal’s character, Larry, is the creative writing instructor.  Larry’s life, though, is a mess.  His own attempts to write are stuck in neutral as he can’t produce even the opening sentence of the novel he’s been agonizing over since his wife left him.  Eventually he settles on “The night was humid.”  Satisfied by at least getting started, he goes to class the next day only to find his protégé, Owen, started his creative writing submission, “The night was humid.”!       

That’s how I think of personal enrichment classes.  They’re fun because you get to sit in a classroom, and that makes you feel like perhaps you’re actually learning something.  And you might be!  But, you won’t learn anything more from a class like that than you would by studying on your own time.  Personal enrichment classes at the community college are amusing pastimes, but you aren’t really going to learn, for example, how to write.  We all know the only way to learn is by doing, and the main function of a teacher is to guide education, not to implant it into your head.  In the movie, though, everything turns out great, Larry and Owen become successful and everybody’s happy.  Wait!  That’s not the point!         

The point is this: you want some personal enrichment, but you don’t want to sign up for a dumb class where you’ll be taught to hatch a murder plot (er something).  We all want to be better at certain (specific and personal) things.  Maybe you’re like Larry and you want to write a book but you can’t get started.  Well, you don’t need a class to do it, you need time and you need motivation.  Most skills in life do not require formal classes.  For instance, these are some of the skills I constantly work at for enjoyment and personal enrichment:        

Juggling:  There are a ton of videos and resources on-line.  It’s easy to get started, and it’s rewarding to be able to say you can do it.         

Guitar:  I suppose you could take lessons, but why bother when all you need are a few books and an instrument?  I taught myself to play 12 years ago.  I’m not great, and it would be nice to have someone to play with, but the fact is that to get started you don’t need to allocate time and money to formal lessons.        

Vocabulary:  Everybody wants a bigger vocabulary.  There are iPhone apps for that and flashcards.  All it takes is a few minutes a day.            

Read:  Reading is the first step to writing.  If you don’t read, you can’t write.  Everybody, then, should set time aside to read a good book.             

Write:  The more you write the better at it you become.  Improving your grammar doesn’t require a classroom.  Buy The Elements of Style for starters.  Then sit down and start producing.  It won’t take long for your confidence to catch up with your ambition.         

Learn a Language:  You could take a class or you could buy a Rosetta Stone program.  Languages aren’t that hard (okay, Chinese is hard) when you open your mind and just let it happen.  An hour a day will make you proficient at most European languages in 6 month’s time.             

Archery:  I took up archery when I lived in Minnesota.  It’s one of the most satisfying and Zen type experiences I have.  All it took was 200 bucks to buy a bow and a place to practice.       

The point is clear.  Start doing what you’ve always wanted to do.  Allocate just a portion of your day for personal enrichment, and you’ll find that learning doesn’t require big commitments, just a series of small ones.  The skills I listed above are the ones to which I’ve chosen to devote, beyond my normal fatherly duties, myself.  Everybody has their own ambitions.  Don’t start thinking you need to be like Owen and take a class to learn writing.  Community college classes aren’t bad by any means.  But, lacking the time, you can always do it on your own.