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Allow Yourself to Play and Have Fun

Shakespeare wrote: 'The child is father of the man'.

In other words, how you are as a child lays the groundwork for the adult you grow up to be. Wouldn't you think that the playfulness and fun that people enjoy as a child would carry over into their adulthood? Unfortunately this is not always so.

As we grow up we are told to 'be serious, grow up, face reality', or 'get real'. But you can create a real world that includes playfulness and fun.

Many of the rich and famous have not lost the spirit of play. People may find fun and play in sports of all kinds. Successful business-people obtain legitimate and acceptable relaxation and fun by participating in, or watching, sport. The film, television and live acting industry create humour and fun for recreation. Whole empires such as the Disney Corporation, have been built around fun and playfulness not only for children but for adults as well. One of the most quoted sayings about the Disney empire is, 'Remember, it all started with a mouse.'

All aspects of fun and playfulness allow you to escape from the monotony or stress of your daily life.

Laughter releases endorphins which keep your body well and lengthen your life. The movie 'Patch Adams' was based on the story of a doctor who used laughter to help ill people recover. There are now many clown doctors throughout the world.

Laughter Clubs are springing up. People meet to just laugh, with games and techniques used to get the laughter going. Even the Toastmasters club I belong to has the Mission Statement 'Fun through Learning'.

The so-called happy chemical is called Serotonin.

It has been shown that it is harder to maintain a positive attitude when Serotonin levels are low. However, you can break the vicious cycle and increase Serotonin by maintaining a sense of humour and flexibility, thinking good thoughts about yourself, touching, loving and giving more, and taking in more Omega 3 Fatty Acids. '

We all have a sense of humour, but often it is suppressed by our environment, past or present. There are many ways to re-discover humour and laughter, starting with the people you associate with. Books have been written on the subject of laughing, such as 'Laugh Aerobics' by Helene Grover, which provides techniques to improve your laughter muscles.

Do you need to put fun, play and laughter in a separate box labelled 'something to do when you are not working'?

Of course not. By introducing fun, humour, light-heartedness, and a relaxed attitude into your daily occupation you can turn work into play for yourself and those around you.

My former husband is a past master at creating fun at work and play. I married him partly because he made me laugh. They say women marry men like their fathers. I did the opposite. Because my father rarely showed his sense of humour to me I found a man who could bring out my lighter side. Robin was a good amateur actor, an artist and cartoonist, although he was working as a mine machinery operator when we married. He could see the funny side in any situation. He was well known for his cartoons in the mine's newspaper.

I met Robin through the amateur theatrical club when I was producing a play. It was an interesting story. As a brand new club we took on the challenge of entering a play in the Drama Festival at Mount Isa , a much larger town than ours, across the border in Queensland .

The play we chose was a tried and true comedy called 'The Man in the Bowler Hat', written by A.A. Milne and often performed by schoolchildren. I cast Robin as 'The Man in the Bowler Hat'. This sounds like the leading part but was actually a small non-speaking role.

Robin was not daunted and faithfully attended all the rehearsals. When one of the other actors dropped out he stepped into the role of 'the bad man'. This was the turning point for the play. Robin used such creative comedy in his role that he changed an ordinary performance into an original and funny one. What's more we had a lot of fun rehearsing.

We took our traveling road show to Mount Isa where we competed against groups which were more experienced than we were, but we won the trophy for Best Play. It wasn't long after this that Robin proposed and we married a year later. In the next few years we produced and performed many plays together.

We stayed married for twenty years. As with all marriage break-ups there were many reasons, but the bottom line was life got too serious. If we had maintained the same spirit of play we started with perhaps we would still be married today.

Fun does not just mean playing or being funny. Everybody has his own form of fun.

For you it might be reading a book, taking a walk, having a drink with a friend, sky-diving from an aeroplane, playing golf, riding motor-bikes, spending time with your children or grand-children or going to a night-club with friends.

Fun is simply whatever you enjoy doing.

And if you don't enjoy doing something you can stop doing it or change your way of thinking about it to make it fun.

Tony Robbins tells a story about a time when he had achieved so much success with his seminars that he conducted them back to back in different parts of the world for many weeks. He finally returned to his home to be greeted with hundreds of messages to be answered. He asked himself, 'Don't I deserve to relax after working so hard?' By turning his attitude around Tony created a way to return the calls and have fun at the same time. He relaxed in his Jacuzzi and made the calls from there.

The idea of turning work into fun is portrayed in songs such as 'Whistle While You Work', and 'A Spoonful of Sugar Makes the Medicine Go Down'. If you want a model of getting things done efficiently with fun, just use Mary Poppins as your example. This simple film is a pictorial workbook on how to change your life through fun, light-heartedness and laughter. Just as Mr Banks turns being fired from the bank into an advantage as he finds the time to go with his children to fly a kite, you can change the mundane and ordinary into the extra-ordinary and magical by discovering and introducing fun in your life.

More laughter, fun and playfulness will not only lighten your life, but improve your health as well.

CHALLENGES

Think of all the things you enjoy doing and find ways every day to do something from your list.
Find books, films and activities to help change your attitude to life and work by incorporating humour, fun and enjoyment into what you do.
Use fun and humour to lighten up and create a happy environment for yourself and others.

Permission is given to share this article providing the following acknowledgement
and link are included:

Article by Joan Small from the Book Series
‘Allow Yourself… You Deserve It’
For More Articles, and Joan’s poems and books, visit: http://www.joansmall.com/joansmallarticles.htm
http://www.joansmall.com

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