Chapter Content
Okay, so, stepping out of time...it's something I've been thinking about a lot, you know? Like, I have this friend, she's got young kids and, uh, she gets together with other working moms, like, once a month, maybe more. They call it “Sunday Funday,” which is kind of cute, I guess. But the thing is, everyone just brings food and, like, drinks, and they don’t have any expectations. It's just to, you know, chill and de-stress before the whole school and work thing starts up again on Monday.
So, one time, the little kids, they were, like, five and six, they just *insisted* on a dance party after dinner. They put on music, their favorite songs, just went totally crazy! Usually, the moms would just kinda, you know, shoo them off to play by themselves while they had some wine, but not that night. The kids wanted to dance with their moms. And they *did*. I mean, arms in the air, music blasting, just dancing and dancing and dancing. Everyone, moms and kids, were all sweaty and flushed and laughing, just having a blast. They went to bed exhausted, happy, slept like babies.
You know, we always talk about how important play is for kids, right? But we think, like, growing up means leaving all that behind. But the thing is, unstructured fun is actually, really vital for adults too. It kind of shrinks your ego, it lowers your stress, it just boosts your well-being. It’s like, essential!
So, what even IS play? Well, it’s basically any activity where you get pleasure from the *process*, not the outcome, you know? If there are rules, they should, like, allow for creativity. You don't need a ton of equipment, or some fancy field, or even rules, really. Just gotta use your imagination! The only real “rule” is that you get joy out of a moment that would've just, like, passed you by.
For me, like, even mowing the lawn can be play. Seriously! I picture new patterns I wanna make, and then it becomes, like, lawn art. It's called "lawn striping," and I really enjoy it, which is the whole point. You know, it takes you out of time. Even if it’s just for a few minutes. Whether you’re, like, working on your calligraphy or learning to make latte art, or, I don’t know, going crazy with a charcuterie board or experimenting with jewelry, or even just driving to another town to find antique shops. Even collecting stamps or recreating makeup looks, or reading tarot cards, roller skating, gardening, or writing a children’s book… I mean, it can be anything.
It can even involve joining a sports league, or a weekly game night, even though those can get kinda competitive. I love a good board game, but when the rulebook is longer than a novel, it just feels like work. Even chores, you know, like home improvement stuff, if you do it playfully, it goes by so much faster! Time just disappears when I'm out there mowing the lawn like an artist.
I read this thing the other day, really touching, about a mom and her daughter. The daughter was, like, eleven, and she was grieving the death of her oldest friends… her stuffed animals. She'd played with them her whole life, right? Childhood, that is. And suddenly, she lost her imagination, and they weren't real to her anymore. She'd, like, forgotten how to play.
She was furious with her mom! She said, "My imagination is gone, and you never told me this would happen!" She was just so, so sad. All the conversations, the emotions, everything she experienced with her stuffed animals, she couldn’t experience it anymore. All that was left were memories. She was gonna give them all away because, she said, "I don’t know how to play with them anymore." It was heartbreaking.
Too often, we think play is about fitness, right? But then we stress about scheduling fitness, and then it just becomes another thing on the checklist. Forget the calendars, forget the scoreboards. Playing to finish or win is just… external. Even in play – spontaneous, carefree, no goals – you can try to stick to your own path. Play for the sake of joy, letting your imagination just run wild, enjoying the freedom to just roam. Maybe, just maybe, play is, like, the most selfish of all the things we need…and that's maybe why it’s so hard for us to actually do it.
So, do we REALLY have to play? I mean, play researchers, yeah, they exist. They've been fighting this battle for a while now. The definition of play usually includes that it *must* be optional. Not a necessary thing on your to-do list. So, you might say, if it's optional, do we *have* to? Does putting it on the to-do list defeat the whole purpose?
This psychiatrist, Stuart Brown, he's the head of the National Institute for Play, he says that unstructured fun is essential for us to thrive as adults. He says that, like, if you don't play enough in your first ten years, you're more likely to have depression, aggression, impulsivity, inflexible thinking, emotional issues, and problems with relationships. It’s a long list.
The benefits of play, the whole list, is really long, but a few really stand out. Play reconnects us with parts of ourselves that get lost when we grow up and have responsibilities. If you can still giggle, that kid's still in there. Play also reconnects us to our imagination, which gets rusty if you don't use it. And play helps us see life with excitement, energy, and humor. It helps us appreciate beauty again, and it boosts our overall life satisfaction.
I mean, we're talking about a biological need here. It evolved in a lot of species, including us, because it helps us survive. It might even help us find partners! A playful adult is maybe more attractive than someone who's, like, always aggressive.
Play can even be resistance, you know? My best days? They start super early, like 4:30 AM. My wife and the dogs are still sleeping, and I go to my office to think and write. Everything’s fresh and possible then. I think better, and writing just comes easy. I make coffee, sit at my computer, and start putting together ideas and words. Email's for later. Mornings are sacred. It's playtime! I play by weaving ideas, concepts, and statistics into a good story. That’s how I approach my “work” as a professor. I love it.
Work and life can be play. Play and life can be work. Having fun is a *choice*, not something you have to do.
I have a friend who hates vacuuming. But he realized his dog thought the vacuum was his mortal enemy AND his best friend! So, his most hated chore became, like, playtime with his dog. Another friend, he makes up songs about what he sees on his morning walks. He hums them, and if someone almost catches him, he just cracks up.
This woman I know, on long car trips, she buys a huge pack of Hubba Bubba, always grape flavor, and she tries to blow the biggest bubbles she can, just to see if she still can.
I also know an engineer, he has schizophrenia, and he goes into his spare bedroom every morning before work. He plays with ideas, and he likes to talk to Albert Einstein about them. We don't try to stop him, we actually encourage it! Because he has fun, he calls it play, and these "meetings" with Einstein help him approach his job with joy AND purpose.
I love to play with ideas, partly because it's a way to push back against the workplace, you know? It can suck the fun out of being a professor. We can all think of play as a way to protect our mental health, in a world where we’re always told to prioritize things with a practical purpose. Time is money, they say. Your worth is billable hours. Any wasted time is a lost chance to make money.
Remember when I talked about how anxiety and joy can exist together? Same with work and play. Take a break, save your work, shut off your screen, and fly a paper airplane at a coworker's desk. Plan a little scavenger hunt for someone you work with. Hide their favorite chocolate bar in a secret place.
Even a coffee run, you know, extra whipped cream, is a moment you can take back for yourself. Don’t think of it as a caffeine break to be more productive. Think of it as a break you’re taking to let your mind just unwind and be free. Changing how you see something changes everything.
So, here’s an idea, right? If you want to make something not fun, call it work and make it something you *have* to do. I’ve seen people turn family vacations into work: the schedules, the itinerary, the forced fun, the obsession with having the best time ever. How can you add play to things you *have* to do every day?
Try adopting a play mindset for everything. Vacuuming, mowing the lawn, whatever. Take those tasks that feel like a drag and flip them around. What about creating fancy, elaborate meals for your family and plating them like you're on Top Chef? Or making silly decorations for cookies you have to bake for a bake sale? Or just drumming on the counter with wooden spoons when your favorite song comes on while you’re doing dishes? Change your *day* mindset to a *play* mindset.
Play is protective, too. It’s like a little world of childhood, a protective bubble, like a butterfly's thingy, that shields kids from the rough stuff and lets them grow. But what happens if you’re born into poverty, racism, hard situations? Can play, if you support it and encourage it, create resilience? Can giving kids more chances to play help them have better lives, and maybe even protect them from the cycle of poverty?
I think about my own childhood. When the bad stuff started, I think I stopped playing until I left that house. School wasn't a place for play either. Once I didn't feel safe enough to play at home, I didn't have anywhere else.
My classrooms were probably like yours. Rows of desks, facing the front. Not much moving. A lot of listening to the teacher. Too much quiet time doing worksheets.
That was awful for me, and even worse for my teachers. They were always telling me to stop drumming on my desk or bouncing my legs. I was always in detention, writing lines over and over, "I will not…”
Then, one year, we moved. I was put in an "open classroom." And, for the first time ever, I was happy. I wasn't in detention, my grades were great, I jumped ahead two years in reading. Then we moved again, and I was back in a normal classroom, back to being the problem kid.
That one year, that "open classroom" year, it was like freedom. It was similar to this study called the HighScope Perry Preschool Study. It was a program for "at-risk" kids, all Black and living in poverty. They were divided into a "direct instruction" group and "self-initiated" groups.
The direct instruction group learned academic skills. Teachers led short lessons in language, math, and reading, with workbooks and stuff. The self-initiated groups, they had classrooms organized into different areas, like reading, writing, math. The goal was to encourage the kids to take the lead, to make friends, express themselves through creativity, music, and movement, and to do basic math.
One self-initiated classroom was a traditional nursery school. The main goal was social skills, not academic ones. Teachers organized activities and field trips. The kids could choose their activities, move around, play with others. Play was important there. The kids started the play themselves.
And guess what? The kids in the direct instruction group ended up with the same bad outcomes as so many poor kids. The self-initiated groups, they didn't! They didn’t become statistics of poverty. It didn’t matter which self-initiated classroom they were in. The difference was devastating. The direct instruction kids had higher dropout rates, more drug dealing arrests, multiple arrests, out-of-wedlock births, welfare dependency, no homeownership, unemployment. Even if they worked, they didn't make much money.
But it didn’t have to be that way. The kids in the play-forward classrooms, they became successful adults! By 27, they were more likely to own homes and earn good money. They weren't dropouts, single parents on welfare, or criminals.
Prevention worked. Giving kids some control and letting them play in a good environment made a huge difference in stopping the cycle of poverty.
Joe Frost, a big play researcher, he found similar things. Kids who don't get enough play when they're young have less resilience, less self-control, and trouble with social and emotional relationships. Play is important, especially for building a better future.
So, why do we stop playing?
As kids grow up, they stop thinking play is important or appropriate. They stop doing pure play and start doing games. Play and games both teach kids how to cooperate and coordinate to keep the activity going. They encourage empathy, seeing things from others' point of view, and responding to hurt feelings. But games, like grades in school, start encouraging rewards and discouraging doing things just for the joy of it.
Games are like a mini version of adulthood. Kids get hurt playing games, sometimes physically, but often emotionally. They might feel ashamed of how they did, especially in front of others. It breaks my heart to see a kid walking off a field, head down, feeling ashamed, maybe crying. In games, kids learn that their self-worth depends on how they do, not on how hard they try. Their sense of self is based on outcomes, not inputs.
Games are, by definition, different from play. Games have clear outcomes and winners and losers. The one with the most points wins. There are rules.
But games can be play if you play them right. Some games are about entertainment, not competition. They focus on the process and imagination. Some video games, they're more about building worlds than completing missions. It’s easier to lose yourself in those little moments without worrying about the end or the score.
This philosophy professor, C. Thi Nguyen, he knows a lot about games, he says that party games like Cards Against Humanity are made for "arbitrariness, skill-lessness, and intentional chaos." They're meant to be played with a sense of fun, not trying to win.
So, play and games can overlap. I just saw this movie, Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game. Pinball used to be illegal in a lot of cities because it was considered gambling aimed at kids! But it turns out, pinball machines were actually made to help Americans feel good during the Great Depression.
One of the creators designed the game to build skills, not just to get points and win. He asked, "What makes a game good?" He said a good game: gives people a sense of accomplishment; has causes and effects, so it makes you develop skills; makes people feel that what they do matters.
According to game designers, that’s what makes people happy and makes them want to keep playing. You need to feel like you're accomplishing something, that you're causing things to happen, that you matter. That’s how games can give you the benefits of play. We all want to know that what we're doing matters. It's a great way to think about life.
And as a professor, I try to make sure my students and I are having fun, at least some of the time. It's my job! Working with young people is fun… and difficult, but ultimately fun. My students, they're not fully adults, not yet. They still have permission to be kids, to have fun, to play.
But students don't seem to be having much fun these days. It's not just being too busy. Before, during, and after class, they're always on their phones, checking in with friends and family. Is that fun? Not really. They're seeing what’s happening, what will happen, but mostly, they’re seeing what they missed. They make plans, get help making decisions, and, yeah, they schedule fun for later.
But even the idea of weekend fun has changed. My students have been talking to me about hard stuff. Overdoses, the risks of overdoses, not just alcohol, but dangerous drugs. It's not just a beer and a joint anymore. It's "serious partying," as they say.
I think my students are trying to escape the pressure of being a college student. If they get less than a B plus, they feel like they've failed. Their future plans, to be a doctor or lawyer, they just disappear. They're just kids, scared, trying to become adults, but forgetting how to have fun.
When I started teaching, it was easy to meet with students. Now, it's a nightmare! Just to schedule one meeting, it takes five or ten emails! They're busy at 9:00, busy at 11:00, lunch is out, classes all afternoon, and then maybe they have a window from 5:00 to 7:00, unless they're in sports or other activities. Being busy, scheduled, and stressed is a badge of honor on college campuses. These students aren't adults yet, but they don't act like children anymore either.
So, how can we remember what we never learned?
Maybe it’s no surprise that we forgot how to play as adults. You put kids in a pool, they chuck balls at one another, race each other, and make teams. You put adults in a pool, they dip their toes or swim laps. Then they make dinner. Where’s the fun?
Adults in creative fields, maybe they get to play through their jobs. Writers, filmmakers, athletes, LEGO designers… maybe they feel like they're playing. Maybe that’s as close as adults can get. We play through our jobs, making money and entertaining people.
For the rest of us, childhood play becomes leisure as adults. It's an interesting word, leisure. It means "to create again or renew.” It means "mental or spiritual consolation.” To console is to comfort someone when they lose something.
Leisure also means "to be allowed.” To do leisure is to be allowed to do whatever we want.
The Danes, they prioritize a good life and work-life balance. They call their leisure time fritid. It means "free time." They even have store sections just for that, for things you do in your fritid: fishing poles, hiking boots, camping gear. Schools have after-care programs called fritid, where kids choose their activities, usually outside. It's kid-led and crucial for building empathy, social skills, and self-reliance. Scandinavian kids don’t even start school until age seven, after years of playing, often outdoors, with no worksheets.
The philosopher Josef Pieper, he argued that leisure is essential to our humanity. Leisure is not just for the sake of work, or getting refreshed. "Nobody who wants leisure merely for the sake of 'refreshment' will experience its authentic fruit, the deep refreshment that comes from a deep sleep."
True refreshment comes from true leisure. True leisure is having free time from work, family, and obligations. It’s the chance to do something because you *want* to, not because you *have* to, like those kids in Denmark. Like play, you choose what you will do.
Leisure can be reading, hobbies like tying fishing flies, making candles, quilting, gardening, bicycling, hiking, watching TV or movies, singing in a choir, going to a play or a museum, traveling, or going out to dinner. There’s an endless list.
What you consider leisure probably isn't my leisure. I like fly-fishing, but tying trout flies feels like work. The point is that leisure is chosen freely and because it brings you enjoyment.
Leisure doesn’t always have to be fun, though. For adults, leisure can be about personal growth. It’s about getting better at things, not because of the outcome, but because the process itself is valuable. Like playing music or learning to paint.
I have a friend who started oil painting a few months ago. She’s in her 80s. Her paintings are beautiful. It takes focus, sitting still, dexterity, flexibility, and patience. It's not always fun or easy. But she loves getting better at it. She loves painting over and over the parts she thinks need more work. It brings her satisfaction, pleasure, maybe even joy.
I've started biking again. It's not about getting better at it. It’s not just for exercise. I like the freedom it gives me. I can go whenever and wherever I want, as fast and as far as I want. It's self-chosen and self-directed. It’s more about the activity than the outcome. It ticks all the boxes of play. I like riding alone or with my wife, especially alone for that feeling of freedom from technology, from cars, from desks, from my four walls, from everything.
We bought a boat a few years ago and we're selling it now. It was fun… for a while. We liked owning it, but eventually, it felt like the boat owned us. We had to rent a slip, get it fixed, and worry about it when the weather was bad. It got too complicated. Leisure isn’t enjoyable when it’s too much work to maintain.
But bikes are simple. And unlike boats and cars, which have computers and parts you can only fix at a dealership, I can learn everything about bikes from my community. The tools to fix them are cheap, and I love being able to fix my own stuff.
So, just like when we played as kids, we freely choose activities that bring us good feelings, experiences, or outcomes. But unlike play, leisure has rules and structure. There are right and wrong ways to do things. There are safety rules. Injuries and fatalities are a sad reality in some leisure activities, especially boating, motorcycling, and even biking. So, leisure has structure, but we design it for our pleasure, for us to participate in, and that matters.
One thing that’s changed in recent years is the rise of passive leisure. If you’ve watched White Lotus, you know the desperation some people have towards their free time. Too often, even our vacations feel like work: planning the trip, finding the Airbnb, dealing with airports, booking the hike. Too many of us are overworked, tired, and looking for something to fulfill us. But passive leisure probably won’t bring us joy.
Just a century ago, there was no such thing as “couch potato” or passive leisure. It was active. People had to make the activity happen for themselves and for others. Singing, playing music, telling stories, fishing, hiking… that was what most people did. Leisure was created locally and by members of the community or family. Almost all traditional leisure activities were done standing up.
Things started changing around the turn of the century. The radio, the record player, movies, and the car created a more passive form of leisure, where people consumed the leisure, rather than creating it.
Families started to stop gathering together to make music and share stories, and instead, they stayed home and listened to the radio and records. People worried that families were being replaced by popular culture. Driving in cars, listening to radios, and watching movies created a form of leisure that was done sitting down. Real leisure was sitting back and listening, not creating and making the leisure yourself.
You see that passive leisure every summer in our national parks, with a line of cars driving through places like Yellowstone. We used to walk in national parks. Now we see everything from our cars, with an occasional story of someone walking towards a bison. But play can’t be passive.
It’s not just our leisure that’s changed. The amount of time we have for it seems to have changed too. We're actually working less now than ever before. People worked more hours a year a century ago, and even 50 years ago. That might surprise you. But some people, if not many, are genuinely working more hours than the average person. And when both parents work, which is more common now, there's less time for housework and childcare.
As people worked more, they had less free time for leisure. But the leisure they did was active, not passive. There's been a slow decrease in the total average hours worked each year and an increase in the amount of leisure time. We spend less time working and more time on leisure than ever before. Yet more people feel stressed and overworked. Why?
It’s because people work in two different kinds of jobs. The low-level service sector, where people can't make ends meet with one job. They're stressed because they can't get enough hours, or they have to work two jobs. Then there's the higher-level service sector, where one job requires working 50 hours or more per week.
People in the higher-level service sector, those with more education and higher incomes, have less total leisure time than those with less education and income. What really matters, though, is the quality of leisure. People with more income and education spend more time on active leisure, while those with lower incomes and education do more passive leisure. Passive leisure doesn't count as play. And people are more satisfied with their lives when they do more active leisure.
Passive leisure makes you feel less satisfied. Passive leisure is like junk food. Doing more passive leisure, whether you’re rich or poor, decreases life satisfaction.
So, it's not how *much* leisure you do. It’s the *kind* of leisure and how you engage in it that matters for improving your life. Leisure that you enjoy, that fulfills you? That's play.
How much enjoyment are your leisure activities bringing you these days? Did you used to enjoy walking your dog, but now you just scroll through podcasts and rush through the walk? Did you used to play tennis with friends, but now you're stuck in a league and everyone's super competitive? Are we all doing it wrong?
Don’t think you need a lot of money to do active leisure. A four-star hotel in Hawaii sounds nicer than a cheap motel, but if your teenager’s driving you crazy, you’ll be miserable either way.
Remember that a hundred years ago, when people had less money and less time, they only had active leisure. And most of it didn't cost much at all.
And what money you have and how you spend it has been a focus of a lot of happiness research. The lesson is clear. It's not how much money you have, it's what you spend it on. People who spend money on things, clothes, jewelry, cars, are less happy. People who spend money on experiences are happier.
Experiences don't necessarily require a lot of money. But money can help when it comes to traveling and going on vacation. If that's not an option, what does that leave you with?
What does it mean to have an experience? An experience is something meaningful to you. You learn something valuable, and you want to bring that back with you and remember it. Maybe you can get experiences from passive leisure, like watching a movie with friends instead of alone on the couch. But I'd encourage more active experiences.
Every day, I see people chasing experiences. But lately, I see them turning experiences into something to consume. With our phones, we can be the subject of our own news report. I think as soon as you take a photo of an amazing experience and post it, it's no longer an experience. It’s a thing, an object, an acquisition. That's the end of the happiness you can get from a genuine experience.
Before cameras, we had to remember our experiences through stories. Then we took pictures on film. But film was expensive, so we had to be careful about how many photos we took. And we had to take the time and spend the money to get the film developed. All that required us to remember those experiences by being present for them, not to show everyone else.
Then came the Polaroid. We could take a picture and get it right away. Now we have smartphones, which take thousands of pictures that pollute the cloud and rarely get looked at again.
A meaningful experience is something you want to share. But in the past, we told our stories at gatherings, reunions, and parties. Experiences make our lives meaningful when we share them in a way that gives them respect, through storytelling, not posting photos and seeing how many people "like" them.
A friend of mine was at a birthday party that showed this shift. A group of friends had traveled to a beautiful place to celebrate someone's 30th birthday. But the weekend had turned into a 72-hour influencer event as some people tried to capture everything for social media.
They ruined the joy of the weekend for everyone else, who wanted to connect in person, not manage their images with endless photo shoots. It was a tragic loss, turning a happy reunion into something to consume, rather than meaning, joy, and connection.
It's not that you can’t record your experiences. But the way we consume leisure now makes me think we've forgotten why we're participating in activities in the first place. Is it to tell the world what we're doing, when most people don't care? Or is it to have a meaningful experience that you must remember? To cherish it as a gift? Only you can keep the memory of that experience, and you alone can tell it to others who might benefit from your story.
Experiencing things in our leisure time can bring joy and happiness if we're present and engaged. I recently saw a young boy fishing in a lake. He woke his mom up early to go fishing, his favorite thing to do. He didn't catch a single fish! He threw out his line again and again. His dad joked that they don't call it fishing, they call it "casting." But he was so happy, and it had nothing to do with the number of fish he caught. He was just present. No camera, no counting.
Take a lesson from him. Don’t let your smartphone and social media likes take all the joy from your joy, okay?
Play and work, fun and responsibilities need each other.
After my grandparents adopted me, I played because it was fun. I wanted to have fun. I didn't realize how much I learned about myself, others, and nature. Play helped me grow up into a better person. As an adult, I want to have fun, and I want to enjoy life. I didn't understand some important lessons as a child. Without cloudy days, we don’t appreciate the sunny ones. It’s the same with play and fun. Without work and responsibilities, we don't appreciate the fun and freedom of play. You can’t have good without the bad.
As adults, leisure reminds us that it's temporary. We're trying to escape work and responsibilities. But in taking time for ourselves, we're reminded of what we don’t get from our work: fun, control, personal growth, curiosity, exploration, discovery, and a sense of contributing to something larger than ourselves.
With leisure, we try to recreate the feelings of childhood play. But as adults, we can never truly play without being seen as odd. We can't go back to what was a once-in-a-lifetime thing: being a child.
Leisure is a break not just from work, but from our sense of our own death. But it also reminds us to flourish if we listen to what the moments that seem hard and dark—the sense of no freedom, no fun, no growth, no control—are trying to show us.
Let’s remind ourselves that play isn’t dead to us. We may not get to play as we did as children. We may not want to. Play, with its fantasy, no outcomes, and no winners or losers, is pretty hard to recapture. But we can get back some of the most important parts of play as an adult.
So, here are some things to do to get the most out of your leisure.
Do more active leisure and less passive leisure.
Don't watch golf on TV. Go find a course and try it yourself. If there's a movie you want to watch, don’t do it alone. Invite friends and make an event out of it. Have themed snacks, costumes, and a discussion afterward. Go for a hike, not because you need to exercise, but because you want to enjoy nature. Join a pickleball league, not to win, but to laugh with your friends. Follow a local band and invite friends to their next free show, and then dance.
Collect experiences, not things, unless the things mean something to you.
Things that remind you of your life, that are important and take a place in your home, are worth getting. They're for you and are an experience in themselves. If you're saving up for a bigger TV, a fancy bag, or a luxury car, think if there's a better way to spend that money. Instead of a bigger TV, can you set aside money for a movie night once a month? Instead of that handbag, can you spend a weekend with friends and catch up without your phones? Instead of that car, can you take a vacation to a place that fills you with awe?
Enjoyment isn't the same as fun.
Have more fun. Laugh more. Go find people who make you laugh. Let your giggles turn into full laughter. Be silly. Have dance parties. Jump off a rope swing into a lake and scream when you hit the water. Throw a Frisbee. Join a trivia team. Sing loudly in the shower. Start a food fight (not at school!). Point at rainbows. Write a poem and send it to a friend. Wear colorful socks to your next meeting. Go rock climbing. Chase a butterfly. Say yes to karaoke. Then get on stage and sing. Ride a roller coaster. Do cartwheels.
In my class on happiness, I tell my students to listen to a This American Life episode called “The Show of Delights.” It says: "In these dark times, we attempt the most radical counterprogramming we could imagine: a show made up entirely of stories about delight."
They quote the poet Ross Gay: "To achieve humanity, we must share delight." I thought of mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are what let us mirror someone else's feelings.
In Gay's book The Book of Delights, he shared moments of delight that I wanted my students to think about: listening to oatmeal bubbling; seeing a deer’s hoofprint; watching bees on spilled butterscotch sauce.
His moments of delight make me think of my own: a red umbrella on a rainy corner; the first bite of a perfect peach; the smell of ocean air as I drive to the shore.