No one looks stupid when they’re having fun. – Amy Poehler

Fun is good. – Dr. Seuss

This post is all about fun, seriously!

The constant refrain I’m hearing from friends and clients, and even myself, these days is, “I need more fun in my life.” We’re all so busy striving and surviving and justifying that we can’t have fun anymore. I suspect we don’t even know what fun is anymore.

Fun has no other agenda than that; it’s just fun. It’s not getting a workout in while you’re having “fun;” it’s not learning a new language while you’re having “fun;” it’s not worrying about winning or how you look while you’re having “fun.” If we have to justify it, or it has another agenda, it’s not fun, plain and simple.

I think we’ve largely forgotten how to have fun because we’re so busy over-planning it, manufacturing it, and over-thinking it. We let our heads get in the way of actually having it. Or we’re told we can’t have fun; it’s not allowed. Here’s an example from last weekend.

It was unusually warm here in Marin, CA last weekend after months and months of rain, which has made all the creeks burble with delight and has blessed us with gifts of tiny waterfalls in the redwoods. Sounds blissful, doesn’t it? On a hike last Saturday to Cascade Falls, which has been dry for years, I heard joyful whooping and hollering, and wondered what all the fuss was about…. The path ahead skirted high above a bend in the creek where a series of natural whirlpools collect. When I looked down from above at the sounds emerging from the creek, I saw a young bare chested guy (he may have been naked for all I know) floating and being tossed around in one of the whirlpools. He was grinning from ear and ear, just loving the experience. It sure looked like fun. Cold, but fun.

As I continued on the return leg of my hike, I came across a couple with a young son about five years old walking along where the creek parallels the street in the wooded neighborhood leading to the trail. The boy declared, “I want to go play in the creek.” His parents, immediately, said “No, you can’t,” and, naturally, the boy asked, “Why?” That’s when I overheard the parents tell him three reasons why he couldn’t, which was really a code word for “shouldn’t.” 1) It’s illegal (which is simply not true), 2) It’s dirty (which is also not true as it flows through an affluent neighborhood), and 3) I’ve forgotten the third one, but you get the gist. It broke my heart to hear these “reasons,” and I’m pretty sure it broke the boy’s too.

This is what we do–we talk ourselves out of having fun; we find all the reasons in the world not to do something or let others tell us what we can or can’t do (even when it’s not true), or we externalize fun by expecting someone or something else to provide it for us (if only I had a boyfriend or more money or a better this or that, I would have more fun). We hold ourselves back so much from fun that it’s exhausting just thinking about having it!

So this weekend, I decided to think differently about fun. I declared that fun is not something that I need to think about or plan; it’s not something that someone else can give me. It’s me. I am fun. I come with fun built in. And, you know what, this way of reframing fun totally changed how I felt. I felt freer, I laughed more, I didn’t worry about what might or might not happen. And, you know what, I actually had more fun.

Hmm, I feel like splashing around in a creek barefoot right about now…. How about you?

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