We can control whether we merely endure our days or experience and enjoy them. We can control whether we arrive on our deathbeds feeling like we've wasted our time or end up satisfied with how we've spent our brief moment in the sun.
-Catherine Price
During my darkest moments in the pandemic, my therapist told me that I had to find joy to keep going. These days, I feel deeply hollow inside. I am not sure when it started exactly, but I feel trapped in trying to figure out how to dig myself back to feeling alive again.
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
― Simone Weil
I first found out about Catherine Price’s work with her book, “How To Break Up With Your Phone.” It all started for me with the idea that I don’t have control over my happiness and my addiction to my phone for well-being has just gotten really bad. My phone is the first thing I check in the morning and the last thing in the evening. I think that the thing that really got to me was the idea that I keep wanting to go to this phone over doing anything else. I am working to fill some void and then when I get it (time on the phone) I actually feel worse. I don’t want to live my life only looking forward to spending time digitally. Something feels deeply wrong about this.
“I reached for my phone to soothe myself, but I often crossed the line from feeling soothed to going numb.”
— Catherine Price
Catherine is not anti-tech - she is just about exposing the ways that tech hi-jacks our brains into spending time on them to sell our data. She calls this “fake fun.” Fake fun is the kind of mind-numbing state that we somehow long to be in while doom-scrolling.
In her most recent book, “The Power of Fun,” she breaks down what fun is and why it is important in feeling alive. Having fun is actually one of the most important priorities that humans have in composing well-being. Her book is life-affirming on so many levels and is an actionable guide on finding fun and making fun. The kind of fun that gives you energy, not drains you.
Having fun helps us feel awake and present for our super brief time on this planet.
Listen here to our very first really real podcast. I am so very proud of it. It would mean the world to me if you shared it with someone right now who needs to hear it, to have a little more fun in their lives.
Before you go, Catherine also has a Substack that you need to check out.
She also is teaching a Find Your Fun Course - and she is offering people 15% off with the code BADATSECRETS. Click here for more info.
If you want a copy of her book, we have one for a US-based subscriber! Comment here.
Bad At Keeping Secrets, the podcast is Stephanie Tsou and Carissa Potter. Audio by Officially Quigley. Sound editing by Mark McDonald. Mark is helping people start their podcasts, if you have been thinking about starting one, I would highly recommend him. Sign up for a free meeting with him here.
How to feel alive again.