It’s Time To Play!

December 13, 2008

This is a guest article:

My home page for the internet is Louise Hay’s Affirmation page, so every time that I go online I have a nice affirmation there waiting for me. Today the affirmation was “I balance my life between work, rest and play. They all get equal time.” Hmmmm. How true is this statement in your life?

Do you balance work, rest, and play? I realised (somewhat to my horror!) that, in my case, playtime really comes in only if I’ve ‘booked’ time to play – like my day at the beach last week, or going to see Hamlet in Stratford tonight – or if I have time ‘left over’ to play after I’ve worked and rested! The end result is that playtime is getting about 20% of my time at most. RUBBISH!

Enough already! It’s time to bump playtime up the priority list! I admin I have gotten into bad habits lately. I’ve been busy and working quite a lot…and because I am good at self care, resting a lot too…but at the expense of playtime! Shocking.

And what’s worse, I know that I am better at this balance than most people I know. Many are very unbalanced (in terms of “work, rest and play” that is – not mentally unbalanced!), and the big missing ingredient is playtime. It’s heart-breaking to see, because playtime makes you come alive, playtime is fun, playtime is vital to you having a happy life – let’s face it, how much better do you feel when you’ve been on holiday? And why?
Because you’ve had uninterrupted playtime!

Holidays are all about recharging your batteries and devoting yourself to having some fun…and then we come home and forget to play for another 11 months and 2 weeks. It’s foolish to neglect your fun muscles – if they get flabby you’ll get miserable. I’m sure I don’t really need to extol the virtues of play – you know yourself that when you take part in activities that you enjoy, you feel better.

So when was the last time you deliberately took part in an activity you enjoy and made a conscious choice to savour that playtime? Why not start tonight? Instead of sitting numbly in front of the idiot box, make an effort to do something playful and fun (if that’s tv for you, ok…but as long as you’re actively enjoying it, not just wobbed out in front of it!). You see people, it’s time to take playtime seriously!

Something to play with

Part 1: What is the balance of work, rest and play in your life? 60/30/10? 40/40/20? Have a guess at the proportions – your best guess will be quite accurate! What can you do TODAY to start restoring the balance (especially the playtime bit!)?

Part 2: What do you do to play? Aim to get a list of 100 things (it might take time, but you can do it!).

Part 3: Do something off that list DAILY.

This is a syndicated article, courtesy of Syndicate Kahuna

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