I'm going to go ahead and date myself here and say I miss the 80's! Gone are the days when I can hop on a bike and head to the Boys and Girls Club after school. There I would squander my days away with Chinese jump rope competitions and tetherball battles (more of a slaughter, Jasmine stopped growing in grade 2). Thinking on it now, I think I just miss being playful!
And while we touched on this back in June’s post in an effort to bring back the idea of a traditional summer vacation, I see no reason to relegate fun to just the summertime. Today I’m taking the seriousness out of life and finding more playtime, in every season, and even in my meditation practice.
The first step to adding more playfulness in life is to gamify everything. Here's an example. I was at the grocery store last week and pretended to be on a game show. You may have seen a show like this, but it's where the contestant has twenty minutes in a gift store to grab everything they want and whatever they manage to fit into the cart at the end of that twenty minutes is free. While my purchases were far from free, I couldn't help but smile to myself in the checkout line when my phone timer went off and I had everything I needed in my cart #winning! Did I look insane zipping down the aisles and getting excited when I found the rice and spices so close together, yes. But I had a blast!