Play should be light, fun, uplifting, silly, unfocused and unpredictable. Do it because you love it and want to do it, not because you have put it on the calendar. Photo: File.
Bruce Kasanoff says we all need to play more – not with the building blocks and dolls of our childhood, but with uplifting activities that spark creativity and supercharge a zest for living.
When you’re seven, you know how to play, but by the time you’re 37, it’s quite possible you’ve forgotten.
So when I started getting messages from my body that I was working too hard and I needed to play more, it took me several years to listen.
Then I hit a few brick walls. Obligations to clients, family and friends narrowed my windows for playful experiences. Old habits die hard, like getting up and going right over to my laptop.
Theoretically, it might be fun to play with puppies, but the nearest puppies were 20 minutes away and the traffic is horrible this time of day.
Finally, I compromised. I combined a simple desire (play more) with my adult tendency to create frameworks. My mind suggested it would be easier to stick to the path I wanted to follow if I had a map. The map I created was really just four reminders. Here they are.
Presence: No matter what I do, jump in with my entire soul. Water the plants like it’s my last moment on Earth. Don’t just answer an email, compose a human response to another human being.
Be fully present, no matter what I am doing. (This is one of the qualities that make play so immersive and fun.)
Lightness: Play is light, fun, uplifting, silly, unfocused and unpredictable. I do it because I love it, not because it’s on the calendar from 10:45 am to 11:05 am.
Alignment: We do so many things because someone else decided it was a good idea.
We work because we need money to buy things.
We operate under a system that someone else designed using words someone else invented within societal mores that we likely inherited.
When I play, I want to leave all that behind and do what matters most to me.
Yearning: I see myself standing at the top of a narrow chute at the highest slope of a ski resort.
There is 30 centimetres of dry, untouched powder snow as far as I can see. When I point my skis downhill, it’s like falling off a building, except there’s no fear, only exhilaration.
I yearn for moments like these … and that sense of yearning is how I tell the difference between enriching playful moments versus lame attempts to act like a kid again.
My goal isn’t to return to my youth; it’s to spark my creativity and supercharge my zest for living.
Aa adults, there’s a natural tendency to put ourselves in smaller and smaller boxes as we age; I wish to do the opposite.
In a few weeks, we’re going on a wandering holiday, with no specific destination, just to see what’s over the next horizon. That’s a good start, but I can do better.
In a few days, I’m going to catch up with a friend who is just back from driving from Utah to the Arctic Circle (and back).
He crossed the Arctic Circle four times. There’s no limit to what ”play” can equal for a resourceful adult.
How are you making playtime a bigger part of your adult life?
Bruce Kasanoff is the founder of The Journey, a newsletter for positive, uplifting and accomplished professionals. He is also an executive coach and social media ghostwriter for entrepreneurs. He can be contacted at kasanoff.com. This article first appeared at kasanoff.com.
