Do You Want To Play?

At one point, we stop asking other people if they’d like to play. 

When we’re tiny, we ask other tiny strangers if they’d like to play with us. That’s how we made friends. And then as we got a little older, we’d call our friends and invite them over to play. We didn’t have to suggest specific games. Just play was enough.

But then, we grow up. Once we’re adults we might sometimes suggest hanging out, but we’re more likely to suggest a specific activity. Go to the movies, grab dinner or a drink, meet up for a workout. At some point along the way, we simply stop suggesting getting together to play.

Why do we stop? It’s not like we grow out of needing the things that come from playing. When we play, we get out of our own heads and can end up in new worlds we’ve imagined. We solve problems and we explore. We stumble across different things we’ve maybe never seen before, and we learn. Play taught us who we are.

As adults, I think we need play just as much as when we’re kids. Maybe more actually. Grown up, we have so much more we’re responsible for. Life becomes stressful, serious. We go for such long stretches without play that we forget what it feels like to have fun. We forget what it feels like to run barefoot through the grass during a game of freeze tag with our friends.

Sure, we still let our brains take a break sometimes. We still let our metaphorical hair down and let giggles turn to deep belly laughs. But play as we get older becomes hobbies. And hobbies turn into personal growth projects and side hustles. We worry that we aren’t being productive enough with our time if we aren’t working to improve in every spare moment we devote to a hobby. At the same time though, we think nothing of binge-watching shows and scrolling social media for an entire Saturday.

I’m not judging rest. Downtime, naps, and all the ways we recharge ourselves are important. I just think the dichotomy is strange. We only take up hobbies if we can see the personal growth payoffs inside our pursuits. But we also avoid taking up hobbies because we don’t want to have more things we’re trying to be good at. Why don’t we see everything in the middle? Why don’t we see play?

When was the last time you did something just because you enjoy it? Something where you weren’t worried about getting better. Something where it wasn’t vegged out downtime between activities. Or something you have to do. When were you last simply in the moment? When was your last window of time when all that mattered was play?

Maybe it would be weird for a thirty-something to text another thirty-something, asking if they’d like to come over and play. And fair enough. It’s not a question I’ve asked without a board game or a ball in my hand for probably two decades. But maybe it’s only weird because we stopped asking ourselves to play long ago too.