Want It Done Right Journal 3Q 2008

Feature Article • Delegation Dr Daily Dose • Corner Crack-up • WIDR Products & Services • My Virtual Manager^TM

Fun in the Sun?

Summer’s here again (well for most of us in the country anyway —my condolences to those of you in the Midwest who’ve experienced a grueling and tenacious winter). It’s time to play! Hooray!

Well maybe not so fast on that excitement. I’ve heard any number of people recently say they’ve forgotten how to have fun. With the advent of that season reminiscent of leaving the school year behind and having fun, perhaps it’s time we learned how to play…again.

Being someone who’s always been a strong proponent of balance of life (even if I’m not always successful at it) I can honestly admit I was initially dumbfounded when people told me they no longer knew how to have fun. In the span of a minute I can conjure up a multitude of ways to have fun! But the more I thought about it, the less it surprised me that this has become a struggle for many adults. It’s almost as though we were handed, along with our commencement papers, a subliminal message that it was time to grow up. Fun was for kids. And in our excitement and eagerness to become adults we embraced this concept with zeal. Now however, we find adulthood has consumed every ounce of who we were as kids. How did we lose the skills to play? (Even that terminology sounds like a nonsequitur — “skills” to play for heaven’s sake!) But maybe that’s just what they are. The good news is if all that’s required is learning the skills, maybe we’re in better shape than we thought. Skills are pretty easy to acquire after all, especially since we once had them down pat!

So what’s really involved in having fun? Do you remember how? Here are some ideas that might help you resurrect the kid within:

Learn from the masters. Have you ever seen a child at play? Children have fun without a whole lot of thought put into the exercise. The words “children” and “play” seem to be synonymous. Watching a child play might help us to remember how it felt to be a child. Engaging with a child in play would be better yet but we may not all have the opportunity to do this. Kids are all around us – and they’re great fun to watch! What I love about kids, especially the youngest, is their ability to be amazed at and entertained by the simplest things in life. In one of our old family albums there’s a picture of my sister intently staring at something on the ground. It didn’t matter what it was she was so captivated by. It was just the fact that she was so captivated that makes that picture put a smile on your face. Many times I think of that picture and remind myself to look at the seemingly small things around me that I too frequently walk past or take for granted. Stopping for a moment to experience that childlike wonder is a great way to recapture the spirit of play.

Get to know yourself. Many of us are so busy we’ve lost track of who we are and what’s important to us. Maybe we can still list what puts a smile on our face but what do we do to actually do whatever it is that puts that smile there? Taking the time to identify what brings us joy may be a good start in creating more of it. Maybe there’s something we’ve always wanted to do or try. If so, do it or try it! Once we’ve identified what makes us laugh or makes us happy it’s easier to go out and do it. If we can’t even come up with a short list of starters, ask around. See if anyone else comes up with something that sparks any ideas lying dormant.

Stop the madness! It’s so easy to get caught up in the negativity that constantly bombards us. And it’s so easy to get caught up in the never-ending, ever-lengthening to-do list. If we’ve gotten to the point in our lives when we no longer know how to have fun (much less have any), maybe it’s time to just stop. Get off the hamster wheel. Stop the rat race. Get out of the rut. Yell the phrase from the movie Network, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Maybe it’s time to puncture our paradigms about what life is about. Assess our assumptions about what it means to be a grown-up. Reclaim reality as we want it to be. Challenge our choices about what makes us happy. Then do something different!

Start somewhere, anywhere. If you’re not happy with the way things are, make a change. Many times it doesn’t matter what change is made, just do something, anything, different. Try something brazen like a dip with the Polar Bear Club (better you than me!) Try something corny like swinging on a swing set or skipping down the street. Even minor tweaks to our routines can shake us out of our rut. One change helps us make another, and another, and another until, before we know it, we’ve charted a new course to contentment.

Adopt an attitude of gratitude. While it’s easy to lament what’s not going well, doing so is not likely to make it better. One way to make things better is to focus on what’s going well. Making it a habit to increase our vigilance for the many gifts and privileges we have in our lives can truly help us be happier. No matter how bad things get, there are many who have it much, much worse. While that may not console us all the time, (as a kid struggling to down the creamed corn and liver staring up at me from my plate it didn’t help to know there were starving kids in the world—I would have gladly given them my dinner!) it can help in the bigger scheme of things to remind ourselves to be thankful for what we have.

Smile more! That whole chicken and egg theory might be worth considering: Translate “if we were happier we’d smile more” to “if we smile more we’d be happier.” It’s an extremely simply solution that’s worth a shot!

Corner Crack-up

A young mother watched as her little boy who wanted to be a batter in little league, played with a ball and bat. He threw the ball in the air, swung the bat with as much force as he could muster and missed the ball.

“Strike one!” he announced.

His mother cringed, wondering if missing the ball would lower her son’s confidence but she tried to remain calm.

She watched hopefully as he threw the ball in the air a second time and swung his bat with a vengeance, missing the ball again.

“Strike two!” he yelled even louder.

His mother, now concerned about his self-esteem and his potentially dying dream of being a batter, fretted about his missing the ball but again managed to hold back her desire to intervene.

A third time her son threw the ball in the air, swung his bat with all his might and missed.

“Strike three!” he screamed with gusto.

She was just about to run to him when she heard him exclaim, “Man, am I going to be a great pitcher!”

Delegation Doctor’s Daily Dose

In keeping with the feature article, offering some assistance to those suffering a brain cramp on how to have fun seemed like a good idea. Here’s a list of 30 possibilities that, for the most part, are quick, easy and inexpensive:

Go for a bike ride. Try it on a bicycle built for two!
Go bowling.
Run through a sprinkler.
See a funny movie.
Play with a puppy or a kitten.
Go for a walk, maybe on the beach or in the woods.
Try to make a baby or a toddler giggle.
Do something, anything, outrageous.
Sing at the top of your lungs (preferably off-key!).
Skip rocks.
Go fly a kite.
Go roller-skating.
Play with finger paints, Play-Doh, Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, Legos or an Erector Set.
Try something you’ve never done before.
Rent a convertible.
Take a bubble bath — with tub toys.
Play on a swing set.
Build a sand castle.
Read a story to a first grade class.
Jump rope, play hopscotch or climb a tree.
Rent a row boat or a canoe.
Have a picnic.
Go wading.
Try to catch tadpoles or frogs.
Build a fort or tree house.
Camp out in your backyard.
Roast hot dogs or marshmallows, or make s’mores.
Lie on your back and gaze at the stars.
Go to a county fair or amusement park.
Turn off your brain and listen to your instincts.