Consciously removing the things you don’t like doing from my life has been the greatest boon to my daily happiness in recent months, but it has added an additional, deeper level of happiness to the equation.
By making the conscious decision to not do things I don’t like doing, I am forced to make everything I do itself a conscious decision. This makes me aware of the opportunity costs of the decisions I make. By going to the gym, I decide that this is better than staying home and perusing Facebook (something I still do too often). By reading, I know that this is more enjoyable than going about the motions with some job I dislike, or doing some work I only find mildly fulfilling.
In short, when you stop doing the things you don’t like doing, you start living purposely. As you internalize this more and more, your actions take on greater meaning for yourself. You have to ask yourself, “Do I enjoy doing this?” If not, you stop doing it. If so, then you have to — at least at a subconscious level — realize why you enjoy it.
As you work to remove the things you know you don’t enjoy, you begin having to choose between things you enjoy more. Perhaps doing A is somewhat enjoyable, but doing B is more enjoyable than A, so you choose B over A. And perhaps the same is true of C over B, D over C, E over D, and so on.
A narrative starts to take shape. All the things you enjoy either interconnect or tell their own webs of stories. You read certain kinds of books, visit certain kinds of locations, work certain jobs, associate with certain people.
As you take a step back, you see the narrative unfolding — the culmination of all these things become you as you work closer and closer to that goal of only doing things you enjoy.
I have known this much to be true for myself. As I stopped doing things I didn’t find fulfilling, I found that I was naturally pushed through a process of elimination (and still am pushed today) and started discovering — not consciously! — the things I enjoyed more.
I’m not a fan of a “be true to your self” kind of narrative — I tend to find it fluffy and that it begs the question of what your self even is — but it really is true with this way of living. When you stop doing things you don’t like doing, you start living in a way that is honest and true to what you yourself want and desire. And it is fulfilling.