I Went Fishing to See If I Actually Liked It

Sometimes the biggest catch isn’t the one at the end of your line.

One of the questions I’ve been asking myself during my Joy Quest is surprisingly simple.

Do I actually like this?

It sounds like an easy question.

For me, it isn’t.

Fishing was something my family did while I was growing up.

For years, I assumed I liked fishing because… well… I went fishing.

But after realizing how much of my life had been shaped by survival mode, I started wondering how many of my preferences were actually mine.

How many things had I carried into adulthood simply because they belonged to the people around me?

So when the opportunity came to spend a day at a reservoir, I decided to pay attention.

Not to whether I caught fish.

To whether I enjoyed being there.

The funny thing is…

I still don’t know if fishing itself is my favorite part.

I enjoyed catching fish.

There is something satisfying about feeling the line tighten and wondering what’s waiting beneath the surface.

I smiled every time.

But what surprised me most was everything happening around the fishing.

At the far end of the reservoir, a flock of geese drifted quietly across the water.

Not flying.

Not making much noise.

Just floating together as though they had nowhere more important to be.

A little while later, a loon appeared.

Then another.

Then a fluffy little baby following behind them.

The three of them swam surprisingly close to shore.

They would disappear beneath the surface…

…and pop back up several metres away.

Dive.

Surface.

Dive again.

As if the whole family had agreed on a game only they understood.

They worked their way down the shoreline before slowly making their way back, passing almost directly in front of where I was sitting.

I don’t know how long I watched them.

Long enough that I forgot to think about anything else.

The breeze kept moving across the reservoir, carrying that fresh smell only water seems to have.

Clouds wandered lazily overhead.

The sun slipped behind them now and then before returning a few minutes later.

I found myself taking slow, deep breaths without even realizing I was doing it.

Not because someone told me to.

Because it felt good.

Because there was nowhere else I needed to be.

Nothing else I needed to solve.

I wasn’t thinking about work.

Or emails.

Or publishing.

Or the next project.

I was simply…there.

That may not sound remarkable.

For me, it was.

For most of my life, my attention was occupied by something else.

Scanning.

Planning.

Preparing.

Watching.

Without realizing it, I had spent decades looking for danger.

That afternoon, I noticed something had changed.

My attention wasn’t searching for danger the entire time. Because let’s face it old habits don’t disappear just because you want them to, especially a decades old one.

It was searching for beauty.

The ripple where the wind touched the water.

The sound of the loons calling across the reservoir.

The breeze against my face.

The shape of the clouds.

The geese drifting in the distance.

The way the sunlight changed the colour of the water every few minutes.

I don’t know whether fishing will become one of my lifelong hobbies.

Honestly, that’s no longer the question I’m trying to answer.

The better question is this.

Can I notice beauty often enough that it begins to feel as natural as scanning for danger once did?

That feels like a far more interesting experiment.

And perhaps…that’s what my Joy Quest has been about all along.

Not collecting bigger adventures.

Not chasing extraordinary moments.

Simply teaching my nervous system that the world contains more than things to fear.

It also contains loons teaching their babies to dive.

Geese floating without urgency.

A breeze across a reservoir.

And a woman in her fifties, quietly discovering that paying attention to beauty might be one of the greatest catches of all.