What to do for Fun in the Age of Coronavirus?

Hi, I’m Paul Krismer, and I’m your happiness expert. For the last number of weeks, I’ve been doing videos about coping with Kovan 19, and the fact that our world feels like it’s in crisis a lot of the time. Of course, it’s true. So, hopefully, the coping videos have been helpful. We also grow in the middle of crises, or at least we have an opportunity to grow. So, that in and of itself has felt worthwhile to be talking about coping, resiliency, and tools to get there. But today, I wanted to talk about more deliberate growth. I wanted to make the video a little bit funner. I want you to just think for a second: how are your pets behaving in the middle of kovat 19? Are your cat and your dog still as playful as they ever were?

I have a friend who’s got a little, wee, Mexican Chihuahua-type little dog, and he’s old, like I mean really old. He’s a gray-haired old man, and yet, still this little guy has moments where he just gets ridiculous. He runs around, rolls around on his back, gets all playful, wants to put his belly up to you, and be petted. He’s silly and we laugh out loud. That dog knows something that’s very fundamental to all mammals. Cats, dogs, little bear cubs, wolves, every mammal plays. It’s part of our hardwiring. It’s how we grow. The most learning is most impactful when it’s fun and filled with enjoyment. That’s what this week’s video is all about.

As a coach, public speaker, and best-selling author, I teach topics just like this one all around the world. So, stay tuned, and I’ll give you practical tools that you can use to make both yourself and those around you both happier and more successful. Here I am talking about play and growth, and I’m in the midst of my kind of messy garden. It’s been raining here lately and it’s early in the spring, so things aren’t exactly beautiful back there. But it’s where I go to have fun. Sometimes it’s like it’s hard work. I’m running a rototiller or I’m sweating in the Sun, and I’m plucking weeds that are pissing me off. But it’s still a source of fun for me. It also always challenges me.

There’s an intellectual knowledge I have about certain seeds and plants, and all that kind of stuff, that’s fun for me to play with. More than that, it’s the practicality of it. Some years my tomatoes do really well, and some years they don’t. Some years I don’t plant the potatoes quite deep enough, and other years they’re fine. It’s a mystery, and I’m kind of figuring it out bit by bit, year by year. I sometimes get my boys involved. I’ve got raspberries that need a better system for keeping them upright, and I’m insisting that they come out and help me on that. So, this play for me is genuinely deeply engaging. It becomes social on occasion, and the product of it is that I’m in better physical shape and I get to eat the stuff that grows in my garden and make wonderful meals for other people. That’s a source of play for me.

As I talk to you about it, you can probably see how it lifts me up. If right now, in the midst of this pandemic, you have a blank stare when I ask the question: what do you do for fun, and if nothing comes to you, that’s not uncommon for us adults in the Western world where work, raising kids, and the seriousness of life is so dominating. But this week, the point is really about getting back to some childish play. So, if you’re wondering what kind of things would be fun for you, if play seems foreign to you, let me just give you a quick list of ideas: any sport, go skateboarding, go for a run, go for a bike ride. Learn a new language, play bingo online, any kind of new book, and reading can be so much fun. Fiction, learn to paint, learn to play the ukulele or the badge, or something that annoys your neighbors. It doesn’t matter what it is.

Grab the opportunity to do something that you haven’t done before, and do it with the intention of making it play. Can you get online with somebody and play a game? And if you’re not a video game player, you’d be surprised at the broad variety there are of them. Just about anybody who’s like 30 or younger is gonna know how to run that technology no problem, and help you get set up. The cool thing about video games is that even in social isolation, you can be playing with other people and have a real sense of community in it. But if you’re lucky enough to have people in your life, or your communities are opening up a little bit and allowing small social gatherings, you can play real board games. You can throw a ball around on the field, you can join a sewing circle. You can do any number of things. My challenge to you is: are you growing? And the best form of growth is play.

So, go think about what you did when you were a kid, what really gave you joy. Be silly, do stupid things, roll around on the floor, put on some loud music, and dance in your kitchen in your underwear. Do something that makes you smile, laugh, and have fun. If you like this kind of content, please click the like button, share this video with your friends and family, and subscribe to my channel, and you get a new video every Sunday morning. Thanks for watching.