As professionals, parents, spouses and athletes it’s easy to get caught up in the “rat-race” trying to achieve the American dream.
We rarely give ourselves permission to play because we feel we are being lazy or non-productive.
Every now and then, make time for play.
Play allows one to use their creativity while developing their imagination, dexterity and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength.
Taken from this amazing article, play is an act of learning.
More specifically, it’s a low-cost way to explore the world in order to obtain high-value advantages. To push it even further, it’s a search for the truth of the reality that we want to effectively inhabit as we live and as we age over time.
To many of us, the idea of play in this way is so foreign that even if all of this makes sense, the question remains:
What does play look like when you are, say, 40 or 50 or 60?
And the answer is that it looks like a space of time, simply left to be dictated by curiosity beyond what you do out of habit — that could mean anything from taking an improv class to simply reading more.
I’ll leave you with this recommendation from Thomas Nebesar, one of our patients:
Check out Ian Bogost’s book: Play Anything. He proposes that play is not the opposite of work.
Play is our perspective or attitude in approaching things. Play can be found in anything from work to a trip to the grocery store. Leisure or rest, on the other hand…
Making time for play,
Ryan