Consider This from NPR - Are We Having Fun Yet? The Serious Business Of Having Fun

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

If you can't remember the last time you had fun, you're not alone. If you want to have more fun, prioritizing it may be the key.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

When was the last time you had fun? No, really, think about it. What were you doing? Who were you with? Did it feel fun? I mean, I'm too ashamed to admit the number of hours I've spent looking at my phone, laughing at TikToks, or embarrassing tweets that I found funny. But was that fun?

A lot of people, especially adults with bills to pay, maybe even mouths to feed, aren't even sure how to have fun. I mean, maybe we take fun too seriously. Consider this producer Brianna Scott searched how to have fun on Google. All right, Google, show me what you got. How to have fun. And about a gajillion search results came up.

Go ziplining. Okay. Let's do something on the ground. Play charades. It's not that bad, but a possibility. Wait. Declutter my home? Dude, no.

That's not fun. Make a short movie? Who am I? A24? Jeez, how do I have fun? And if you search on YouTube, you'll come across a ton of videos of people giving tips on how to have fun. Five fun things to do with your friends. Don't get bored while staying at home. Here's some actually fun things that you can do while you're inside.

You don't quote unquote just have fun. You have to generate fun. If you want to do something else with your time, here are 101 ideas. A few weeks ago, the Washington Post published a story by Karen Heller with a simple headline, fun is dead. Heller writes that people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to hire a party coach, take seminars and workshops, all to figure out how to have fun. But maybe it's easier than we think. I think often we don't recognize these little moments. And so we feel like we're not having enough fun, but you're probably actually having more fun than you realize. We're just not paying attention to it.

We're going to take a breather from the news this episode and answer the question, what's so hard about having fun? From NPR, I'm Andrew Limbaugh. It's Friday, January 12th. It's Consider This from NPR. I get not having fun. It feels particularly hard right now with COVID, multiple wars, climate change. Our lives are filled with responsibilities and problems. And yeah, I mentioned this at the top, but it's worth repeating, bills to pay, you know, our loved ones, our jobs, social media, all jockeying for our attention. I think many of us tend not to take fun very seriously because it seems frivolous. It can almost seem irresponsible to think about fun, given today's climate and everything that's going

on. And what we don't realize is that fun is actually hugely beneficial to us, both in terms of our mental and our physical health. Katherine Price is author of The Power of Fun and the Substack newsletter, How to Feel Alive. We are in desperate need of more fun, especially as adults. And I think that that has become more apparent to us as we recover from the pandemic when so many sources of fun were taken away from us. A lot of us have been left feeling like, okay, well, we're supposed to be back to quote-unquote normal, but I don't quite feel like my life is as fulfilling as I would like it to be. I spoke to Catherine to get to the bottom of all of this, and I asked her to define fun for us. So what I found is that the dictionary definition doesn't match the lived experience

when people have fun. And so I decided as a science journalist and writer, I decided, well, I'm going to try to come up with a better definition of what fun is. And the definition I came up with is that fun or true fun, as I call it, is the combination of three states, playfulness, connection, and flow. And when those three states are together, like the center of the Venn diagram, that is the feeling of fun. Playfulness does not mean you have to play games. A lot of adults get very nervous when you use the word playfulness. So I like to say you don't have to necessarily be silly or childish. It's really just more about having a lighthearted attitude towards life and towards yourself. Connection

refers to this feeling of having a special shared experience with other people. And then flow is active and engaged. And really importantly, flow requires you to be present. So if you're distracted at all, you can't be in flow and you can't have fun. So long story short, I believe that the most accurate definition of fun is that it is a state of playful connected flow. Interesting. So this issue of, you know, just the idea of a party coach, right? But on the other hand, I don't know if it's something like akin to like a physical trainer, right?

Someone to just help you along. And I don't know, I kind of want to get your take on why these jobs exist and how have we commodified the business of fun? I mean, I think that the reason that there's a market for such things is that there's a genuine problem, which is that we don't, we're not feeling connection or playfulness or flow that often. Things feel very serious. We are very lonely and isolated, and we're very distracted. Everyone is so busy, but yet unfulfilled. So I think that the market does speak to this genuine longing that we have for something more.

On the flip side, I don't think it's necessary to do that. I think that there are steps each of us can take and reflections we can engage in that can fill our lives with more everyday moments of fun without having to spend money. And it is interesting. I mean, I literally have thousands of stories from people around the world about fun at this point. And it's fascinating to notice how few of those involve people spending money or even going anywhere. I think those are two misperceptions we have about fun, that it costs money and then you have to be outside of your everyday life for it to occur and then that leads to another misconception we have which is that fun is for the privileged and that gets to the whole like how dare you think about fun right now you know

that's only for people who are in this particular echelon of society that's not true i mean it's really not true like sure if you have a ton of money you might be able to facilitate fun in some ways other people might not, but you don't have to have that. I recently spoke to someone who told me about two hours of fun that he'd had where he was sitting on a park bench with his nephew just trying to catch leaves as they fell off a tree. Like, that does not cost money. much social media plays into this, right? Because I know when I play with my nieces and nephew, right? My sister then always like, gets out her camera that we got to like, pose in the leaves. And then she has to post it on the gram. It's like, well, we were just having fun. And now we shout out to my sister. I hope you're listening. I love you. Right. But what does social media do with our perception and our concept of having fun? I think it's really messed us up because one of the requirements for fun is that you be completely present and that your inner critic is silent. It's those two requirements. And if you're performing, then you're not fully present and you probably have your inner critic

on in some capacity, not even necessarily saying bad things, but just being like, oh, does my smile look right? Do I really look like I'm having fun? Like, is that the version of fun I want to, you know, project to the world? That kills fun. Fun is very fragile. It's like a sensitive flower, like it's going to run away, you know? So I think that social media really warps our vision of what fun is because you look at people's posed photos and you think everyone's having more fun than you and it always happens on a beach. And then it also gets in the way of us experiencing fun because it gets in the way of us experiencing our own lives. If you ever find yourself turning your life into a performance, then you are not having fun. All right. So I'm going to come to you, hat in hand, standing for my listeners,

right? If I want to start having more fun today, where do I start? I'll pay you the $500 entry fee to be my fun consultant or whatever. Oh, nice. I'm great. I'm making money here. What's the one thing I could do? Yeah. You think back on moments from your own life that stand out to you as having been fun and notice what themes emerge. These are things that you should prioritize. I'd also say, though, to really play around with the idea of how could you build more playfulness, connection, and flow into your everyday life. You know, how could you be more present? How could you reduce distractions? One suggestion I always give for playfulness in particular that I love is to try to be playfully rebellious. Do things that kind of break the rules

of adult life a little bit, not in the way of getting you arrested, but just something that's because it delights you. Do stuff that delights you and create delight for other people. Just as one concrete example, I once gave a talk somewhere and this woman came up to me and she told me about how she and her friends had these disco parties in their basement with these portable disco lights. I mean, that itself, roller skates were involved.

That was playfully rebellious. But I was like, oh my goodness, you can buy these disco balls off Amazon for $9.99. And so I ended up buying a bunch of these disco balls and just sending them to friends with like no explanation just because I thought, well, that will be delightful, you know? And so just that kind of mentality, how could you bring more delight to the world will increase the fun that you experience. And then lastly, this is a great list of one suggestion that I'm giving you. I'm giving you like 17. But it's one long suggestion long suggestion yeah one long suggestion is to prioritize it like that's the most important thing take fun seriously play around with it

and just notice the difference in your mood i mean it's true i i'm i'm a convert i mean that's not surprising given that i wrote the book but we should be having more fun the world would be a better place if we had more fun what do you do for fun what brings fun for you oh um that's a hard question don't worry if it's a hard question a lot of people find it hard yeah i mean i'm gonna sound like a i'm gonna sound like a jock i don't mean to sound like a jock um but it's usually just like exercise basedbased. I hate that I said that. It's like... Well, what, can you think of an example? Other than just like talking with the boys.

Oh, but that's a great example. That's a great, that's an example though. That's important. And I think that that's another really important point for listeners to take away, which is don't discount everyday moments of fun. Those little moments are what fun is. I remember hearing from one young woman when I was giving a talk somewhere and she was talking about how she

had a ritual with her friends of something that was like taco Tuesdays. I don't remember if it was actually Tuesday, but, and she was like, well, I previously really had kind of written off taco Tuesday as like, oh, well, you know, it's kind of a silly thing, like alliteration, tacos and beer and whatever. But now when I'm thinking about what it really means to me, this is actually one of the most important times of my week. It's a time to have fun with my friends and connect with them. And, you know, it's just sounds strange to think about that almost as like a sacred moment in her week, Taco Tuesdays, but it is. And so I would say the same of what you're explaining about the time you spend just joking around with your friends. Like that's sacred time. That is fun. That's essential. And it should be elevated, if that makes any sense. But we all

have those little moments. Like what's your Taco Tuesday, listeners? You know, like what leaves you in that energized state? Because those are the moments in which we feel the most alive, honestly. And they're the moments we should be prioritizing. And you can have fun in any moment, too. I would also say, you know, like this conversation is fun for me. I am in a state of playful, connected flow. Like technically it's for work, right? And like I'm not even looking at you right now.

We're just doing this audio thing. But this is fun. And so when I go to bed tonight, and this is another suggestion I'd have for listeners. And if I scan through my day for moments where I had fun, or when I had playfulness or connection or flow, this will stand out as one of them, you know, so like that counts. And I think often we don't recognize these little moments. And so we feel like we're not having enough fun, but you're probably actually having more fun than you realize. We're just not paying attention to it. You can always work to have more fun, but there's a real value in recognizing the fun that's already occurring.

So like you said, this is an audio medium, so we can't see each other. But letting you know, I'm holding up my finger. I'm going to say this has been a delight. I will do that delight. I'm doing the same. Truly. Catherine Price is the author of The Power of Fun, How to Feel Alive Again. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much for having me.

This episode was produced by Brianna Scott. It was edited by Jeanette Woods. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. Go have some fun this weekend. I'm Andrew Limbaugh.