There is a scene in Inside Out 2 where Joy says, “Maybe this is what happens when you grow up. You feel less joy.”
As someone who has made growth almost an entire personality trait, that stayed with me.
Maybe this really is what happens when we grow up.
Life slowly fills with responsibilities, expectations, deadlines, bills, and decisions that somehow become more complicated every year. We answer something while thinking about the next thing. We eat while checking our phones. We become so used to switching between responsibilities that sometimes doing only one thing feels strangely unproductive.
At work, especially in fast-paced environments, that ability is useful. We need to prioritize, automate what can be automated, make decisions quickly, and find more efficient ways of doing things. I actually enjoy that part. There is something satisfying about taking something complicated and making it simpler.
The problem is not learning how to move fast. It is forgetting that we do not have to move fast everywhere.
Sometimes the habits that make us effective at work quietly follow us home. We optimize our weekends, measure our hobbies, multitask through dinner, and think about what else we could accomplish while watching a movie. Even rest starts needing a purpose.
When Everything Becomes a Goal
As children, we did not need a productive reason to enjoy something. We drew even when we were not artists. We danced without wondering whether we looked good. We became deeply interested in random things simply because they were fun.
Then we grew up and started asking whether everything was useful.
Will this help my career? Can I make money from it? Is this worth my time?
Hobbies become side hustles. Reading becomes a yearly book goal. Walking becomes a step count. Even rest becomes something we justify because it will supposedly make us perform better tomorrow.
There is nothing wrong with goals or efficiency. If a repetitive task can be automated, I will probably be the first person wondering why we are still doing it manually. But maybe not everything needs to be optimized. Some things are allowed to exist simply because we enjoy them.
Enjoying the Process
I have noticed that I naturally do some of my best work when I genuinely enjoy what I am doing.
Enjoyment makes me curious, and curiosity makes me experiment. Instead of only asking, How do I finish this? I start asking, Could this be simpler? Is there a better way? What if I tried this instead?
Perhaps that is something children understand naturally. They experiment without worrying whether every attempt will lead somewhere useful. They make things, break them, rebuild them, and sometimes discover something unexpected along the way.
There is creativity in that kind of curiosity, and I think adults need some of it too.
Enjoying what we do does not remove discipline, deadlines, or difficult work. But when we care about what we are creating, we pay closer attention, ask better questions, and become more willing to explore beyond simply getting the task done.
The Small Things Are the Life
One of the reasons I wanted to keep a five-year journal was to remember the ordinary days.
Big moments are easier to recall: a new job, a birthday, a trip, an achievement. But most of life happens between those milestones.
It is the food we ate, the song we kept replaying, a conversation that made us laugh, the book waiting beside the bed, the anime we somehow finished in two days, or the walk that helped clear our minds. These moments may not feel important while they are happening, but together, they become our lives.
Writing them down has taught me that appreciation does not always require something extraordinary. Sometimes it only requires attention. We can enjoy what is already here while still wanting more for ourselves.
The next milestone can be exciting without making the present feel like an empty space we need to rush through.
Maybe We Need a Different Definition of Productivity
I used to think productive days had to look productive. Something finished, learned, created, organized, or crossed off a list.
Even leisure could be optimized. Listen to a podcast while walking. Organize photos while watching TV. Read something educational instead of something purely entertaining. There was always a way to make one hour accomplish two things.
But I am starting to think productivity does not always have to mean producing something.
Sometimes it is finding a faster way to do something that used to take hours. Sometimes it is finishing something you have been putting off. And sometimes it is spending an entire afternoon reading a book or finally watching the anime you have been excited about without simultaneously trying to accomplish something else.
Because at some point, what exactly are we trying to become productive for?
We work efficiently so we have more time. We automate repetitive things so we can spend our attention somewhere more valuable. We build systems so everything does not require our constant energy.
Surely some of the time we save is allowed to become life. I still want to grow, learn things, build things, and become better at what I do. I still get excited when something that used to take an hour suddenly takes ten minutes because I found a better system.
But perhaps part of becoming better at life is knowing what deserves optimization and what deserves our full attention. Work can be fast. Systems can be efficient. Repetitive things can be automated. But life does not always need to be. Sometimes the time we save should simply become ours again.
There is nothing wrong with wanting the next big thing. I probably always will. I just do not want to move so quickly toward it that I forget to enjoy all the ordinary things happening on the way there.
Growing older is inevitable. Growing distant from wonder is not.