How Can I Have More Fun?

A running list of resources to help you with each fun factor

To have more fun, we first need to understand what it is (and isn’t!)

Fun *isn’t*:

• something reserved for the weekends or the wealthy

• a feeling or experience that is achieved after accomplishing a goal

• an expensive vacation or hobby or Broadway musical

• pressure to find your “passion” or “purpose”

• a hack to become more successful

• the same as being happy, making jokes, or “looking on the bright side”

• a way of denying the many awful things happening in the world

• just for children or retirees or artists or clowns

• one size fits all

• authentic fun if it creates suffering

• meant to avoid or replace other human emotions like sadness, disappointment, or fear, all of which are healthy

We have conflated “fun” with spending money, happiness, and not working. But it’s not hard to imagine someone who goes an expensive vacation, filled with all the bells and whistles, and doesn’t have any fun. If you aren’t the type of person who can easily find fun at work, it doesn’t magically present itself when you go on vacation.

We have also internalized that fun is something that follows. You can have fun after school. You can have fun after you are done studying for that exam. By all means, have fun after your children go off to college. Right now, you must focus on getting a degree, earning money, saving money, earning more, saving more, more, more, more.

Furthermore, we have fallen into the trap of seeing fun as a fixed personality trait: either someone is fun, or they aren’t. I think if we properly examine what fun really is, we can begin to see these myths for what they are, and fun for what it really is: our true nature.

Fun *is*:

• a mindset that can be cultivated

• free and available to everyone

• our natural, authentic state

• critical to our learning and development

• effective at ending conflict and divisions

• possible even in extremely difficult circumstances

• worth pursuing even if it leads to nothing else

• respectful of all living things, including yourself

• sometimes a very serious endeavour

• a destination in itself (not a path to take you to happiness)

• about embracing an experience for what it is

• seeing the inherent value in everything and everyone

• personal and unique to every human

Putting it together:

• we have fun when we spend enough time in any of our most authentic states:

• to be truly authentic requires confidence:

  

• we can foster a “fun mindset” by intentionally working towards boosting our confidence across each of these "four fun factors”

  

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Resources to Boost Your Fun Factors

Connecting

• Creative Mornings (inclusive community that offers in person events, virtual workshops, weekly inspiration)

• Peoplehood (from the founders of Soul Cycle, a way to quickly connect with strangers)

• Omgyes (research backed techniques to improve your sex life)

• Lunch Club (facilitated introductions for 1:1 virtual networking)

• Skip the Small Talk (events to bring people closer together)

• Actually Curious (game with question prompts to strengthen bonds)

Growing

• Quest Club (participate in community oriented, curiosity-driven learning journeys)

Disconnecting

• Cafe Anne (newsletter that is a joyful read)

Creating

• Marc Rebillet (improv musician)

• Cave Day & Groove (communities for collaborative deep work)

• Daybreaker & Ecstactic Dance (inclusive & global dance communities)

• Shadow Traffic (participatory event collective)

Other Recommended Resources

👀Paying Attention Vs Getting Attention

📚Book of Delights

📚The Art of Noticing

👂What is fun?

📰 How to add more play to your grown-up life (4 types of playful personalities)

👀 Identity in Play

👂Gender roles and fun

📰The decline of American pastime - and how to resurrect it

👂 Designing a Fun-tervention Part 1 & Part 2 from The Happiness Lab + A Listener’s Story

👂 Huberman Lab: Using Play to Rewire & Improve Your Brain