Much of life is about doing what you have to do. To all the advocates of the notion that life is about being happy and having fun, I’m sorry for being a grump. Truthfully, though, I consider myself a happy person. I love being happy, and I love having fun. I just feel the need to address the abundance of cute little pictures edited with the words “Live for the moment” or “Do what makes you happy” that I’ve seen on the internet in recent years.

This summer has been different from any other summer of my life. Summer has always meant freedom, friends, and play. This year, however, I returned from four months studying abroad in Uganda and began working at an Italian market to start paying off the debt I owe my parents, as well as taking online classes to get caught up for the upcoming semester at Lee. Due to a strange sequence of events that would take too long to explain, I spent the summer with my parents in a Washington, D.C., row house. In a nutshell, I spent a long summer working, taking classes and hanging out with my mom and dad in a big city where none of my friends live, and like-minded college kids are scarce.

I realize that this may seem pathetic, but I want to be clear in saying that this summer has been very, very good. Yes, studying anatomy for four hours straight, and making Cream of Wheat (with soy milk) at 2 a.m. throughout all of June may seem depressing and antisocial. For me, however, these past few months have taught me the substantial value that exists in doing ordinary, unexciting, and often not-fun things. I’ve found that peace and joy appear most tangibly during my early-morning bike rides to work, or in delivering an extra foam cappuccino to a customer’s table, or while cooking stir-fry with my mom.

Much of this mentality I now possess is probably owed to my recent experiences in Uganda. Over the course of the semester, I got to live with two different Ugandan families -- whom I now call my own. I saw them work hard every single day, without complaining about their lives. One of my two amazing mothers, Martha, forever changed the way I see joy. She was around five months pregnant at the time with a 9-month-old wrapped onto her back, chopping wood for the kitchen stove. All day, every day, Mama Martha worked diligently and with few breaks. It looked like a thankless and tiresome life to me as an outsider. But every night when the day’s work was finished and Mama was gathered in the little kitchen hut with Papa Wilfred and their five children, I saw simple joy and fulfillment beyond anything I had ever experienced. These people, who had little and shared all, were thankful and content.

I’ve been dealt a good hand. I could choose to not care about most of the hard questions and issues. I could choose to not work very hard and would still survive at an at least mediocre standard of living. Truthfully, I have gone through times in which I have decided to do as I pleased, disregarding almost everything and everyone which seemed to oppose my desires. Those were arguably the darkest and most unfulfilling periods of my life; I found that there was no joy in living for my own fleeting pleasure.

There is a lot to this life, and I’m afraid that being happy and having fun only fills a small portion of it. This is not to say that fun is a bad thing. I believe laughter and freedom are real gifts from God. I believe that happiness is a part of life, but that sadness, struggle, and suffering are, too. So much substance lies in the hard work: the honesty, the patience, the discipline, the gratitude, and the (often voluntary) joy that every day brings.

Real life is not happy, it is not fun, and it is definitely not fair. What I’ve found thus far, and will most likely be learning for years to come, is that the mundane jobs, the simple conversations, the aching backs, the pleading prayers, the ugly cries, the uncomfortable confrontations, the doubting moments, the frustrations, the let-downs and all the awkwardness of life -- that’s the good stuff.