To PLAY - A Vital Tool That Many Have Dismissed and Forgotten

Play

Another easy concept to acknowledge, remember, and dismiss.

Did I just write dismiss?

Yep.

Why did I write dismiss?

Because everyone understands the word ‘play’ but how many of us really do it? 

Hold on, hold on.

Let’s define play.

The online dictionary has it as such: “Engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.” The example they used as a noun is the following:

"the children were playing outside"

Granted, as we have grown older in our years, the idea of playing has taken on different… how shall I say, characteristics? 

The type of playing that we did at five years old was different than the playing we did at eighteen. The play probably changed as we hit our thirties. However, one of the things that I would want us to consider as we move through life as the decades move by is to revisit this concept.

Return to our childhood and remember how we played.

I’m not telling you that you need to go back and play the things that you did when you were a small child although it might be fun. 

No.

The main point is the go back into the mindset of what it was like to simply play.

Remember when we played and our enjoyment was NOT contingent on how many points we got, did we score the winning goal or touchdown, or how many people liked our social media post?

We had fun with each other using our thoughts, emotions, and yes, imagination. We simply had fun playing and hanging out with our friends.

Do you remember laughing really hard for NO GOOD REASON?

I remember the excitement when friends would be coming over and I couldn’t wait for them to get there. We didn’t have Siri or an app that would let me know where they were and people didn’t Facetime or text.

They made plans to come over and you waited excitedly until they did. 

When they arrived, you DIDN’T just curl up for a movie or launch into a video game.

You visited with each other - face to face.

One of my favorite games as a child was playing hide and go seek. One of the memories my kids still remember very strongly was when they were little, around four or five, we had friends over and they had about five kids so with our two and their five, we had seven.

The rental house we lived in had those speakers so you could talk to each other from room to room. I remember turning off the lights (with the kid's permission ;-) and telling them all to go hide. I would wait a couple of minutes and then go to one of the room intercom/speakers and start doing a scary, monster breathing.

I’m coming to get you…. 

I’m coming to get you…

I’d say this with a creepy voice and the kids would laugh and shriek at the same time. I would make a point of clomping up the stairs slowly, all the while with my ragged monster breathing. 

It was hard not to laugh as they laughed and shrieked at the same time. As I think about it, what cracks me up is I told them all to go run and hide and I’d find them. 

I found them all huddled together laughing and shrieking.

The bigger kids were pushing the littler one toward me, the monster.

That was so much fun.

It is so very healthy for us to engage in play that is not rooted in competition or being better than someone else.

It’s the joy of playing, laughing, and being together making memories.

Playing is a vital, healthy, and amazing concept that we too quickly dismiss as we move into this strange thing called ADULTHOOD.

Let's not leave some of the best parts of our childhood back in the past. Let's bring it forward into our day-to-day lives!

I promise you, if they ever put me in an old folk’s home, I’ll be the one hiding behind the door, waiting to scare the nurses!