What happens when everything you do doesn’t work?

At school we’re taught all those cliches that tell us to keep trying, never give up and hop back on the horse even if we’ve fallen off every time we get on. However, what they don’t prepare us for is when all the above doesn’t hold true.

In moments like these, I think about way, way, way back in the day, when my PlayStation wasn’t working, the daily “Arthur” episode was just a rerun and I couldn’t find my Game Boy. I thought my world was ending. Nothing I did was working, so I would go to my mom whining about being bored and wanting something to do. In response, she would go on a rant about how back when she was young, her parents would just send her and her siblings outside to play, and then lock the door so they couldn’t get back in. Of course, I knew my mom would never do that to me (she barely let me cross the street on my own until I was at double digits, petrified that I would end up getting kidnapped in the middle of the crosswalk.) However, that wouldn’t stop her from waxing nostalgic about a time before play dates, before activities had to be educational and before parents had to be more creative than their kids to keep them entertained.

Nonetheless, once I looked beyond the parental craziness, I could see that there was actually sane advice in there. In life, you have to learn how to make your own fun. And life has reminded me time and time again that it is often very necessary to do so.

Work, work, work, work, yeah you know I got that work.

Wale’s “Bait” became my unintentional anthem this past weekend as I attempted to live up to my own and other people’s expectations of what a good time really is. Never in my life have I spent so much time trying to find something to do on a Saturday night, especially not when I’m attending the supposed capital of school social life. But I sucked it up, and to avoid all that ridiculousness, my party-pal and I spent copious amounts of time doing research and pre-party planning to ensure that we found the function. And we did.

We found the magic words “free before 11,” and we were on it. This time we got ready early, checking “yes” to everything on our going-out list. Even though we had done everything right and had backup contingency plans, things still went wrong. Our ride never came no matter how many times we called, neither of us could afford to drop $30 just to enter a sweaty, overpriced club and we had no desire to walk past the locals who really liked our outfits (I never thought being called Tina Turner could make me cringe.) So we were left with the decision to wallow in our disappointment or to keep it moving.

And this is when I had a mini-epiphany as my mother’s words came back to me about making my own fun — making my own way. Everyone knows that sometimes things just don’t go as planned — that’s stating the obvious — but that doesn’t keep you from asking yourself, why? No, not why, but when? When do I stop trying to go down this path that (maybe) I’m not meant to go down?

So when you’re done lamenting your life, it’s a good time to see that the same route that’s killing you might be better left for someone else. This doesn’t mean you’re taking the easy way out, it just means that you’re smart enough to see that the road marked “dead end” got that sign for a reason.

As a kid, I didn’t completely understand the beauty of what my mom was trying to tell me because I thought it applied only to my ability to find something to do during playtime. But it goes further than that — what she was really telling me was that I’m the only person stopping myself from having a good time. I’m the only person who keeps looking in the couch cushions for the Game Boy that definitely got broken at school the week before. I’m the only one capable of making whatever experience I’m having a good one.

That Saturday night, I made the decision to actually listen to my mom’s advice. We shook off the letdown and moved on to our Plan F, which meant being open to the possibilities of finding fun in the most unexpected places.

Camira would like to hear your idea of a fun night, so why not email her at camirap “at” stanford “dot” edu?