What Do You Do for Fun? (A Surprisingly Difficult Question)

What do you do for fun?

I was recently scheduling a coffee chat with a new acquaintance through her booking link. The link included a few "get to know you" questions.

One of them was:

What do you do for fun on the weekends?

Ummmm...

I was stopped in my tracks.

Fun?

What do I do for FUN?

I am 100% honest when I say learning and improving my skills as a therapist and coach is fun for me. But when I spend an entire weekend with my nose in a book or behind a computer screen, I don't feel restored.

Things we love can still burn us out.

Since this question was posed to me, I've been asking other people.

My husband was also at a loss. He has ideas of what he'd like to do, but we don't really live in a place where he can easily do them. We love our Friday nights with pizza and Your Friends and Neighbors. But is that what fun boils down to as adults? Pizza and a screen?

I had dinner with friends and asked them the same question.

One answered, "Dance."

The other said she has fun redecorating her house with ChatGPT.

But the question got all of us thinking.

We're a bit of a serious bunch: healers, entrepreneurs, deep thinkers. I suspect fun gets pushed to the side.

So I started wondering:

What exactly is fun?

The dictionary defines fun as:

"Light-hearted pleasure, enjoyment, amusement, or the experience of having a good time. An activity or state of being that is purely enjoyable and provides a break from serious or practical matters."

A break from serious or practical matters.

Hmm...

That takes a lot of my "learning fun" out of the equation.

There was a book my kids loved when they were little called Duck and Goose. In the story, Duck and Goose mistake a ball for an egg and become completely devoted to protecting it.

When another bird comes along and wants to play, Duck is horrified.

"Play?! This is no time to play!"

Goose agrees.

"This is very serious business. This is perhaps the most important moment of our lives."

That quote has been rolling around in my head all week.

Because so much of adult life feels like very serious business.

The state of the world feels heavy.

Many of us are carrying stress, grief, worry, anger, responsibility, caregiving, work, financial concerns, and the endless list of things that need our attention.

There is very little space left for amusement.

Very little space left for play.

And yet chronic seriousness comes at a cost.

When stress becomes our default setting, our nervous systems stay flooded with stress hormones long past the point of usefulness. Over time, that contributes to inflammation, poor health, burnout, anxiety, and disconnection.

Most adults have forgotten the lightheartedness of childhood, when we could get lost in play for hours.

We forget for many reasons.

The seriousness of life.

The need to prove ourselves.

Money stress.

Relationship stress.

Trying to survive.

For years, my work has focused on helping people slow down, rest, and do less.

But lately I've been wondering if another piece of the puzzle is helping people play.

Helping myself play.

Because play isn't frivolous.

It's good for your brain.

Good for creativity.

Good for problem-solving.

And incredibly soothing to the nervous system.

I think what counts as fun is deeply personal.

For me, I genuinely enjoy playing with my dogs, games with my family, and apparently buying and planting flowers (I cannot seem to stop this year).

But I think I need more of it.

And I'm looking forward to expanding my definition of fun.