We stopped playing when life got serious. That is when we needed play most.
Children play to learn: how to share, how to lose, how to try again. Adults stop, and then wonder why life feels heavy.
Play is not the opposite of work. It is practice for work — and for love, and for staying light when it would be easy to be heavy.
Play teaches what no course can: how to be bad at something and enjoy it, how to laugh when you fail, how to stay in the game because the game itself is fun.
Try it this week, without needing to be good at it:
- Play one game badly. A board game, a sport, an instrument — badly, on purpose, with someone you like.
- Make something useless. Draw, cook a new recipe, build a small thing with your hands. Not to be productive, to be playful.
- Laugh at yourself once a day. On purpose. It is a skill.
You do not need more time to play. You need to remember that play is not what you do after life is handled. Play is part of how you handle life.
Play a little. Life gets lighter immediately.
