Play The Game

Adulting is hard. And I write. I mean, I think all of us at some point or another feel like I don't want to be an adult being a child was so much more fun. And if that's you, if that's the way you have been feeling about being an adult, I want to challenge you that that is a matter of perspective and that you as an adult have a lot of autonomy to create fun for yourself.
In fact, being an adult can be a lot of fun. In fact, there's a lot of research that indicates it's really critical. Otherwise, you're going to be miserable in your life. But not only that, I mean, you're generally not going to be as good at things like problem solving, things like productivity. So fun is not only, well, fun, but it's critically important to the way that you function in your daily life.
So I'm going to take you through some of the types of play that are recommended for children in early stages of childhood. And I'm going to flip that around on you. Adult and I want to encourage you to consider the types of play that we expect in a child and how you can integrate some of these into your daily life as a full grown adult.
And full disclaimer here If you just Google types of childhood play, you're going to come up with all kinds of lists that have various types of play. And I'm just going to give you some common types of play that you're going to find frequently repeated on these lists. These are not the only types of play, but let's get started.
The first type of play that is frequently recommended for kids is called physical play. It's a movement play. And as the name implies, you're using your body, you're doing stuff physically. And I think this is something that we as adults maybe really struggle with, because sometimes we have jobs that demand for us to sit still all day, which is not really something that we as a species are good at doing.
We shouldn't be good at doing it. So you do need to be able to get up and physically play? Sure. Going to the gym may count, if you like, going to the gym, but maybe you go to the gym just for health considerations and it's not really fun for you. So it's really important that you can engage in some physical types of fun that aren't merely obligation or you're your to to try to keep yourself healthy.
Although the two things can go hand in hand. Activities like dancing come to mind as easy examples. But, you know, just the simple act of skipping instead of walking is something that children do naturally, but adults think of as being weird. However, you can be a little weird. You can have a little fun with the way that you are moving from one space to the next.
And in addition to physical play, there's what's called dramatic play. And this is playing pretend. And, you know, we don't think about this as much as adults, but as children and as teens were often really taken by the world of fiction. And we love reading books that are fiction and watching movies that are fiction. And then as adults, we tend to get more into the practical side of the world, and we lose interest in the fiction.
But that dramatic play of our mind pretending things that aren't necessarily true is actually really critical to our creative skills and our problems solving. So can you integrate some make believe into your day? Can you play pretend in some way? Tell yourself some stories in your head, read a little short story of fiction and just allow yourself to imagine it like you were in it.
Let your brain play in a dramatic way. Sensory play is also a really vital form of play, and this is just simply using your senses. So this crosses over into other types of play as well, in that you want something tactile, auditory, kinesthetic ways that you can engage the various senses that you have in playful and find ways learning, messing with things, just feeling new textures, stopping in, smelling a plant as you're walking by.
These are all fun and enjoyable activities that you can allow your mind to just play with. And speaking of smelling a flower, one of the other forms of play they encourage in children is called nature play. And this is just being aware of and interacting with the nature around you. This is something, as a kid you probably did really easily.
And as an adult, sometimes we take for granted the nature we see and we just walk by it on our way to the next task. But can you engage some with nature? Be curious about the plants that you see, the smells, the textures, the way that they grow and just allow your mind to enjoy and play with the experience of the nature that you see every day, even in an urban environment.
And then the last form of play I'm going to talk about is creative play, which is something like music art, something where you are using creative skills to make something but just for fun. So not because your boss is asking you to or for any client project, you're just taking a blank piece of paper or you're taking a piece of Play-Doh or clay or Legos, and you're making something just for the pure fun of it with no pressure involved.
And there are all kinds of opportunities to do this around you every day. In fact, we have a burrito chain where I'm from called Freebirds, and part of what they encourage you to do is take the tinfoil from the burrito that you purchase and turn it into some sort of creation and then put it on their walls. And I think this is a great example of how you can use something that you might have otherwise discarded to practice creative play, because we need to play.
Play is fun. Nobody likes a boring, serious adult. We like to see people who are enjoying their job. We are encouraged by people whose attitude is one of curiosity and joy, and that requires some play. So go out there today and get some work done. Sure. But you know what? While you're doing it, get some play done as well.
I'll see you next time.