Type 2 Fun
As the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award celebrates its 70th anniversary, I have been thinking about something I heard recently that seems particularly relevant to wellbeing.
I watched a BBC video of a group of young women undertaking their Gold Award expedition. Along the route, they met explorer Dwayne Fields and talked about their experience.
One of the participants described the expedition as “Type 2 fun”. Her explanation was wonderfully straightforward: “When you're having it, it's not fun at all. But when you look back, it's actually the best thing ever.”
There is something in that. We tend to think about wellbeing in terms of how we feel: happiness, satisfaction, comfort, enjoyment, the absence of anxiety. But some of the experiences that we remember most positively are not necessarily enjoyable while they are happening.
A long walk in the rain as part of a difficult expedition. Then being exhausted at the end of the day. Having to work things out when there is no immediate solution – no one brought a lighter for the stove.
But there’s the satisfaction of finally reaching somewhere that, a few days earlier, seemed a very long way away. Part of the value comes from the fact that not all of it was enjoyable.
I was a D of E supervisor for a number of years and remember one expedition in particular. One participant had a Crohn’s attack while his group was out on the route. When they failed to arrive at their checkpoint within the agreed time window, the pre-arranged safety procedures kicked in. The situation was assessed and eventually an ambulance took him away.
It was clearly not a pleasant experience, for any of us really. Yet when his father had arrived, neither of them seemed particularly fazed by the idea that the expedition had gone wrong. The response was essentially: he'll have another go in a couple of weeks.
Nether of them would have described the experience as fun. But still, some experiences acquire their real value when we look back on them. They become stories and those strange “type 2 fun” memories. Sometimes they even become the experiences we are most proud of.
That's worth remembering when we think about wellbeing in general. Not every worthwhile experience needs to be enjoyable at the time. And most certainly not every difficult experience needs to be avoided.
Wellbeing is not simply about creating more moments in which young people feel good. It is also about giving them experiences that, years later, they can look back on and think, “That was hard. I hated parts of it. And I'd do it again.”