Many of us strive to just get through our days. Work a full week then rest on the weekend. Work a full year then rest during vacation. We often give everything of ourselves to our various roles in life as a member of a company, family or community. When those roles are prioritized it’s often ourselves that get fed last, when everyone else and everything else has been finished first. We get the leftovers of our time and energy. Often stress or fatigue takes over at that point and making an effort to have some fun seems no more involved then catching up on sleep or television.
Over time, putting our own joy on the back burner can serve to worsen our low mood or energy. This can lead to physical symptoms like pain or sickness. Then, many get fixated on the problem in front of them, focusing on only making mental or physical aches go away.
It’s time to prioritize fun, focusing on yourself, regardless of how you’re feeling right now or how busy you are right now. Make it as regular and as important as brushing your teeth. And, after awhile, fun may be as commonplace in feeling as brushing your teeth; meaning we can benefit from seeing fun as part of a balanced life and not necessarily as something to stir an extreme passion as a distraction from or replacement for other stresses. Schedule a walk outside, pencil in an outing with a friend. Making it part of your written or digital schedule can help in creating these new habits. And doing this regularly will strengthen your unconscious practice of simply making it part of your everyday without as much external effort.
If you find yourself seeing most things as have-tos instead of want-tos, it’s time to infuse your routine with joy, born from your desires and intentions.
If all this talk of joy and desire spurs a blank in your mind you might first want to focus on a short list of things that make you happy. Still not clear? Well, then it’s time to experiment. Get a pen and paper and make a list of 5 things that, in the most infinitesimal of ways, you think might be fun or interesting. Try a new restaurant, write a poem, attend a concert, say “yes” to the next invitation you receive, and so on.