Find Your Groove

Morning friend.

On Thursday morning I stopped to talk to a woman and her Whippet whilst we were walking Ziggy.

We pass each other regularly across the golf course we like to walk through on days when the sun is out.  It always seems wrong to me to walk through the woods in dappled shade during the last throes of an English summer.

Once the usual pleasantries and the standard nod to the weather were over we somehow got onto the topic of family.  

Ziggy continued to realise the hard way why a Staffordshire Bull Terrier chasing a Whippet is a game that rarely ends well.

Her father had served in the Royal Navy as an engineer in the 1950s but left to be around for her and her sisters. She told us he was always a curious man. At home, he would spend his free time in the garage alone taking cars apart.

Not to resell them or for any other reason other than because he enjoyed finding out how things worked.

I kept thinking about him as we walked on.

When I was younger, it seemed there was always someone in a garage or a shed, occupied with something they enjoyed. I see less of them now.

I know those people are still out there somewhere. But I wonder where we find the time for that now, when there is so much more fighting to occupy and fill every spare minute of our lives.

Between the ages of fourteen and nineteen, I spent much of my free time behind a drum kit.

I went to music college. I played in great bands.

I didn’t start learning to play because I wanted to earn money from it or become the next John Bonham, although I spent far too many hours playing along to “When the Levee Breaks”, dreaming of making my kit sound anything like his.  Every drummer knows that to be about as possible as Ziggy ever catching that Whippet.

I played only because I loved it. 

I could sit down, find a groove and lose hours in my bedroom or a studio without wondering whether I was making good use of my time.

I haven’t owned a drum kit for 25 years.

At some point, I told myself I would buy one as a treat if I ever had a book published. I still like that idea, but the conversation on our walk made me notice what I had done. 

I’d attached something I loved to an achievement I was still working towards.

That didn’t sit right.

When did the things we love doing start needing a reason?

I talk a lot about purpose on podcasts and on stage. I truly believe that setting your sights on something that really matters and doing the work required to reach it is an important part of living well. 

I’m not about to tell you to ever stop doing that.

But I also think that we all benefit from doing stuff simply because we love to do it.

I love Jiu-Jitsu and lifting heavy weights. I leave the mat and the gym tired in my body and better in my head. I know what training gives me and how important that feeling is. For someone else, a run or yoga might make you feel exactly the same.

But Jiu-Jitsu and training don’t feel like the drums made me feel.

They still have a reason behind why I choose to do them.

Now, this isn’t about which hobbies count more or if some are better than others. 

It’s about whether there is something you would still want to do if the only outcome was that it felt good doing it.

If it made you no fitter, earned you nothing and took you nowhere.

The woman’s father wasn’t taking a car apart to build a side hustle or prove that he’d used his weekend well. 

I think a life well lived needs room for that kind of simple pleasure.

There are things we do because people depend on us. Things we do because we hope they’ll take us somewhere. Things we do to pay for the other things we want to do.

Life needs space for all of those. 

That walk on Thursday across the golf course reminded me that I think we also need to protect some time for the things we love doing simply because. 

That time can be hard to defend because it rarely looks as important. 

It’s easy for it to disappear into one more piece of work, or into a phone we picked up without quite knowing why.

I think being busy needs a counterweight.

Her father had his garage and the cars he loved taking apart. I had the hours I could lose holding a groove.

Neither of us needed anything to show for that time. 

Just the pleasure of being absorbed in it for what felt like only a few minutes, then looking up to find another hour had gone.

Before we go any further, let’s take a moment to debrief together:

Is there something you used to get lost in that you haven’t done for a while?

Perhaps life changed and it isn’t possible in the same way now. Perhaps it’s still within reach, but you’ve been waiting for a better time to begin again.

Your mission this week (if you choose to accept it):

Think of one thing you enjoy for its own sake. 

Protect a little time to do it. Put it in your calendar.

No need to improve, produce anything, or make a habit of it. 

Just see how it feels to be there again.

I’m not ordering a drum kit today (I wish I was).

But I am wondering why I decided I had to publish a book before I was allowed to play again.

That’s enough for now. 

More next Sunday.