I’ve been thinking about fun. I think about fun a lot, as in how to get more of it into my day.
For the past few years, I haven’t exactly prioritized fun. I do things that are fun here and there, sprinkled among the many days of work, work, work.
And it is not that I don’t enjoy my work – I do – but I wouldn’t categorize it as fun. Work isn’t supposed to be fun. That’s what I learned by absorption, anyway. I can’t think of a moment I can point to where I learned that work and fun cannot exist in the same sentence, but it is something that I knew all the same.
Through journaling and reading loads of non-fiction (something I never did until recently), I’ve also been doing a lot of inner work. I can now say that I am a recovering perfectionist and procrastinator, though I doubt I will ever be truly free of the double Ps. I am a self-compassion advocate, and a work in progress.
During all that work (both inner and outer), fun just didn’t seem important. Now I am realizing how essential it actually is. Not only for my mental health in general, but for my creativity as well.
Since I was really out of practice on the whole having fun thing, I decided to ask my community how they incorporate fun into their lives.
How does my community prioritize fun?
I asked people on Instagram how they prioritize fun, but not a single person answered. I figure there are a few reasons.
1. IG did not show my story with my poll to very many people.
2. Those that did see it didn’t know how to answer it.
3. They couldn’t be bothered with answering.
I’m sure I would have let that story go right on by, too, since I have no idea what I would say.
However, this entire discussion of how to prioritize fun led to other thought-provoking questions that did get responses.
What is fun?
I told a friend that I wanted to put more fun into my day, and I was going to start by sitting outside on autumn mornings to drink my tea and eat breakfast. She told me that wasn’t fun. It might be enjoyable but not fun.
I thought, well, it’s fun for me. But she almost had me convinced that her definition of fun was more accurate, so I decided to ask IG people another question.
Is fun more active, or can relaxing be fun?
100% said relaxing is fun. Though to be fair, my IG people are readers and writers like me, so we tend to be an introverted crowd.
But the question of something being enjoyable versus fun still nagged at me. Perhaps sitting outside eating breakfast and drinking tea was just enjoyable?
So, again, I asked IG people. 100% said they distinguish between something being enjoyable versus something being fun.
But that still leaves the question: What is fun?
When I asked another friend what she thought of when she thought fun, her answer was like mine but she said way better. She said fun is whatever feels like a strong YES in her body. She doesn’t really distinguish much beyond that.
So, what is fun?
It’s up to us. If sipping tea outside feels fun, then it is. If it feels enjoyable, then it is. Maybe it is even both enjoyable and fun.
How do you think of fun? And how do you prioritize it into your day?
I am still working on the answer to these questions.