Are we having fun yet? Why having fun is no frivolous matter

When I began this article, I was pondering why had I put myself through the mildly stressful (dynamic pricing of the chalet booking, the race to book limited places on fun activities), definitely expensive and logistically challenging experience of organising an over-in-the-blink-of-an-eye holiday for the group of adults ranging in age from 26 to 75 who currently constitute my family? The answer, of course, is that I keenly anticipated having some fun. Why though? What does having fun do for us? And what, exactly, is it? 

According to Catherine Price, author of The Power of Fun, the feeling of fun is one of exhilaration or light-heartedness, of being energised and alive.  She interviewed 1500 adults about their experiences of fun, and identified three factors common to real, restorative fun: playfulness, connection and flow. In other words, it is within our power to create fun in many different situations, rather than only when we are engaged in specified ‘fun’ activities.

True fun, she enlarges, is about feeling a lightness of spirit, feeling engaged with another person or people, and being absorbed in the activity. Price suggests we don’t necessarily need all three components to be having fun, but certainly one or two. This explains why it is quite possible to be rowing an open boat in a light drizzle towards a wet campsite with two small damp children, and still be having fun! 

Why might fun be important to us even as adults? One answer comes from Barbara Fredrickson and her broaden and build theory. She asked, scientifically, what positive emotions were good for, and came up with some answers. When we are ‘feeling good’, for instance when we are having fun, we are boosting our resourcefulness and resilience for other, more difficult, occasions. A sense of achievement can boost self-confidence, new skills learnt might come in handy some other time - one of our party on this holiday took his first steps to playing bowls and pool, good for social skills and a confidence boost. Two others took up tennis racquets for the first time in yonks and rediscovered the delight of that skill as well as experiencing the pleasure of beating me hollow!). Fun also fosters relationships, allowing us to feel close to others as we laugh together, or share moments of achievement.

Price also exposes a widespread myth: that ‘fun’ is the shadow side of ‘work’ and so having fun is effortless, suggesting that your leisure time will just fill itself with fun activities of its own accord. Price notes instead, that unless you figure out how you want to fill that leisure time, you risk experiencing existential despair when the void within yourself becomes manifest. I know this feeling very well, as I suspect do many others. And I think she is right, fun isn’t just an absence of non-fun activity, it is a positive thing in its own right. It has to be sought and earnt.

Understanding fun in this distinct, positive way means you can work out when you have had fun in the past, and then proactively make more space for it in the future. With this orientation we discover, as with most things, that the more we look for opportunities to experience fun, the more we find. These can be both small moments of fun that we might have missed, and bigger opportunities to make things more fun, or more things fun. 

My own observation is that some people have a real knack of making things fun. My own partner, the 75-year-old, has a strong competitive streak, but is also great at teasing and joshing which takes the intensity of the competitiveness down a few notches, making activities much more fun for everyone else. One of my sons, who could beat the two of us armed only with a table tennis bat, plays badminton with his ‘parental units’ once a week. I marvel at his willingness to do this, wondering what’s in it for him. Applying Price’s thinking I realise it’s the sense of connection and engagement we all create by not taking ourselves too seriously that makes it enjoyable for all of us, skill levels be damned. And he does consistently experience the pleasure of beating his dad!

It’s interesting to note is that all of these things: playfulness, connection and flow are active states. Passive activities, watching a good film for example, might be relaxing and enjoyable but are unlikely to transport you like good fun can.

How to use this knowledge?

·      Think about your ‘micro-doses’ of fun. Five minutes playing with pets works for some people. Making someone laugh. Making funny faces to amuse a stranger’s baby (exercise with caution, but usually appreciated by harassed parents). Brief conversations with strangers in shops, at bus stops.

·      Notice when your battery is running down and you need a ‘fun’ recharge

·      Identify which of your friends are ‘fun magnets’, plan to hitch a ride on their fun train.

·      Make sure you are rested enough to be able to have fun. Being distracted, over-tired, over-stressed, or highly self-critical, are not good places from which to start to try to have fun, even though having fun will probably help with them! And resentment, says Price, is a sure-fire fun killer!

·      Avoid the trap of turning fun into work, and, most importantly

·      Don’t allow fun to leach imperceptibly out of your life just because life got busy.

The launch pad for this article was an excellent article by Elle Hunt published in the G2 section of The Guardian on Wednesday 26th Jan 2022. She in turn called on the book by Catherine Price, The Power of Fun

 Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Co-Creating Planning Teams For Dialogic OD’, ‘Positive Psychology in Business’ ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

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