> Perception of Fun

Introduction

When you remember a holiday, the stress of booking, the boredom of airports, the dank budget hotel you stayed in, the argument you had with your partner all fade into the background. You focus on the Mojitos, getting to the top of that cliff, keeling over laughing with your mates.  Our feelings about an experience can change, even when your memory of the experience doesn’t change. In a 1997 paper, researchers compared peoples evaluations of an experience before, during and afterwards. Across all three, people looked back on an experience more positively than what they wrote at the time.

How we feel about an experience in the moment, how we feel about it afterwards and whether it was worthwhile are three different perspectives. The first two give us four broad patterns. Whether and experience was worthwhile is another question, one I’ll come back to later.

Comparing how an experience felt at the time and how it feels much later and you’ll get to 4 broad patterns.

Type 1: Bliss

You remember good, it felt good.

The feeling you get when you’re relaxed on a warm beach with a Mojito, nothing else in the world matters. The memory of enjoying the journey as much as the goal. For example building and enjoying something you’ve made, be it a game, a cake, a sword. 

One of my best memories is being 12, making a sword. I loved building a forge, fetching stones from the woods. I loved smashing hot metal with a hammer to mould it into the shape I had in my head. I loved spending hours with a small file to make a beautiful intricately designed handle that just fit. Most of all, I loved swinging it about with my mates, chopping fruit and tree branches. Keeling over laughing with those same people when JP doubted it was sharp, so he tested it with his finger and got cut. These experiences are the ones we never forget.

However, some experiences need a bit of time before they become enjoyable.

Type 2: Better in hindsight

You remember good, it felt bad.

On a ski trip with some friends, I attempted my first black run. I was at the top staring at what felt like a 45 degree angle (really a -47% grade), thinking, I’m screwed. After my first turn I was on my back trying to stop sliding, scrabbling for grip, scared, thinking about the cost of a helicopter rescue if I broke my neck, increasingly unhelpful thoughts in my head. On the slope itself I wished I was anywhere else. However, after about an hour, I wanted to go back! I wanted to go down on skis all the way down. I didn’t even think about how frightened I had been. In an hour, fear and dread became ambition and courage. It’s the same for when you go on a hike or do a combat sport. The discomfort still matters, the achievement matters more; reaching the top of that hill or landing that hit against a superior opponent. 

It’s an experience that becomes enjoyable to look back on.

Yet, distance could also make a good experience into a bad one

Type 3: Soured in hindsight

You remember bad, it felt good.

Sometimes, one embarrassing moment can colour an otherwise good time. Where you feel that the event was bad, but in the moment, you feel good, and everyone remember good.

At a house party years ago, we decided to make some bacon sandwiches. One of my mates spilt brown sauce down himself in front of his crush, in the moment he was all laughs and giggles. Now, he just cringes at that memory, and that’s all he focuses on when he remembers this experience. The rest of us remember it being hilarious, I remember his crush laughing with him and all our mates having a good time. We remember a good night, he remembers the brown sauce.

And sometimes, rarely, unfortunately, bad is just bad.

Type 4: Bad, bad, but necessary

You remember bad, it felt bad, but worth it.

Leg day at the gym, physiotherapy and getting stitches are all examples of this. There experiences you don’t want but do on the hope it’ll benefit you once they’re over. They can even be small things, I don’t enjoy brushing my teeth or wiping my ass but it must be done. For example, getting a tattoo. It’s a needle that goes in and out of your skin tens of thousands of times to get a design permanently on your skin, it’s not enjoyable and no-one looks back on getting a tattoo positively. Yet we still get them, some of us even go back for more. All that just to have a design on your skin.

It’s not experiences you necessarily want to have or remember, it’s experiences that you endure because the result makes them worthwhile

Closing remarks

With these types in mind, that leaves us with three questions: Did I enjoy it at the time, do I enjoy remembering it, and am I glad I did it? The answers don’t have to match, they don’t all have to even matter.

Understanding the types of experience that are out there gives us a way to decide what experiences we want more of, what we’d rather leave behind and what discomforts we are willing to choose.