Permission for Fun

I was listening yesterday to Episode 300 of the podcast “We Can Do Hard Things”.  Author Catherine Price was interviewed and was speaking on the topic of FUN, the focus of her most recent book, The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price.

When Price was defining fun as the intersection of playfulness + connection + flow, where one is fully present, lets go, and experiences the freedom of living uninhibited from their true self, I thought about how so many experiences from travel come to mind when I consider this definition of fun in my life.  

Fun doesn’t always need to be found across the ocean for me, as attested by a salsa dance lesson with friends in my living room last week, but there is something about travel that helps clear the way of obstacles that tend to block fun for me in life.  For too long, fun was hindered by to do lists, demands, workaholism, self-consciousness, and my conditioning that fun is some kind of extra that I’ll deserve once I reach a mythical line in my days and life, a line I have often continued to move out further in front of me.  

I’ve been giving myself more permission for fun in the past few years, at home and abroad, and I’ve discovered its importance, as the benefits are lifegiving and holistically many.  

What about you?  Describe an experience of fun where you felt playful, connected, and lost in the experience.  

In America’s culture of productivity and striving, and in a world that is straining under the weight of pain and problems, remember to fill your bucket and don't wait too long for fun in the middle of your days and life.  Dance to a great tune in the middle of your day,  let yourself be taken in by whatever is a fun magnet for you….maybe book a trip with me to experience wonder and fun abroad.  😀

“We can’t control the fact that we will die. But we can control whether we actually live.” -Catherine Price, The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again.