Have Some Fun

“We’ve got to learn hard things in our lifetime, but it’s love that gives you the strength. It’s being nice to people and having a lot of fun and laughing harder than anything, hopefully every single day of your life.”
—Drew Barrymore

Living life as we know it is busy. At times we find it difficult to get enough time to sleep. We move from one task to another, from one thing to another. We rush here and there and get caught in traffic jams. Life is stressful and harried most of the time.

We have to make time for fun. Having fun is healthy, it’s a good thing. Taking time off to relax can actually invigorate us to move forward in our tasks and projects.

We may have spent so much time in our lives busy that we have forgotten how to have fun. Some folks enjoy a long hot bath, others love to go to a movie or live play, yet another may enjoy gardening and find that to be fun. What’s relaxing and fun for some may be work for others, but the important thing is to find what it is that is fun to us and then make sure we do that thing.

If we’re not having fun, most likely we are not getting enough sleep. We probably eat on the run, and stay under a lot of stress. Having some fun is like a release valve that allows some of the stress and tension to leave us so that we are better able to cope with the pressures of life.

We can have fun while we work if we allow ourselves to. And if the job we have is not conducive to having some fun while there, we either need another job or we have to ensure we get that fun when we are not working.

The world won’t fall apart if we take some time off to laugh and play. Sometimes playing with a child can be the best release. Children don’t have the worries of the world on their shoulders; they play and don’t worry about what isn’t getting done while they do it. For those who don’t know how to let go and play, go watch children, join them if you can and stop worrying about life for a few minutes.

Find some fun things that release your stress and do them.

Choose Who to Be

“Begin each day by asking yourself what kind of person you want to be. Say to yourself: If I die tomorrow, how would I wish I had been today? Would I wish I had treated my child, my partner, and my friends more kindly? …Would I wish I had been happier and more aware? Or would I be content with having been preoccupied with petty values and distracted by foolish concerns?”
—Hugh Prather

We can make the choice to be who we want to be. No, every action and reaction we have won’t hit the mark we want, but the desire to be happier, kinder, and more aware is the start to getting there.

If we snap at our child, partner, co-worker, or friend, we can apologize and strive to not do that again in the future. If we spent part of our day gossiping about another we can strive not to do that, and stop ourselves in the middle of it. Maybe we aren’t grateful for what we have and instead complain about the things we don’t have.

If we don’t know what type of person we want to be, then we don’t have anything to strive towards. Those in recovery groups have a focused plan that helps determine their decisions. People who are active in churches learn about ways to be better people. We learn by trial and error sometimes, but mostly we need to have a place to work towards.

Life really does look different if you stop and think how you would live if you knew it was your last day, or last year. Most of us would be more loving, want to spend time with those we care the most for, and we’d want to have some fun as well. We can do those things now, whether we have one day or thousands left to live.

Be who you choose.

Compromise

“One half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it.”
—Sidney Howard

Most of the time in order to attain something new we must give up something, make some sort of compromise, and this is too often something that many people will not do.

If we want a particular job but the hours aren’t exactly the desired ones we have to decide if that’s the job we really want and if so we work around the issue of the schedule. If we wish to have a committed relationship with someone we may have to give up some of our time with others, not all of it because that wouldn’t be healthy, but we have to give up somewhat to make room for more.

In order to lose weight we’d have to give up our snacks and eat smaller meal portions, plus time would be given to exercise. But if we really want to lose weight we do what it takes to get it done. It’s the same thing with learning to play an instrument, play a sport, a new hobby, anything we want to add to our lives may mean something else is taken away or cut back.

Giving up something to get another thing is not always necessary. But when it is we must be willing to consider what is at stake when we seek out the new. If we aren’t willing to make the commitment to spend the necessary time with the new thing, especially if that’s a relationship issue, then we ought to not start it so as not to hurt the other person because of our unwillingness to compromise.

Most new things in life do take a certain amount of willingness to make adjustments, to adapt to change, to compromise, but without making such efforts our lives may become stale and stagnant. So upon considering making a change or beginning something new, we must look at the costs of that situation as best we can estimate it and decide if it’s worth what we give up to get.

Growing, doing new things may mean giving up something else, but is often worth it.

Give Thanks

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
—John F. Kennedy

Every day of the year we ought to stop and express our gratitude to God for the blessings we have received some of which may have seemed to be more of a curse, but nonetheless we see them in hindsight as opportunities for growth.

We all have many things for which we can give thanks and any time we can remember to be thankful for what we do have, it takes our focus off of the things we do not have.

We may bemoan our jobs because we are not happy in them, but others are faced with unemployment. We might worry that our homes aren’t nice enough, or maybe they are in the wrong neighborhood, but we have a home. There are millions of people in the U.S. alone who are living in the streets or out in the woods with no home and only scraps for food. We worry that someone with a better income than us will look at us as less than. And they just may do that, but it matters not in the grand scheme of things. Life isn’t so much about what we have as it is about love.

Giving helps us to appreciate what was given to us. We, no matter what our financial status, can do for others, especially those less fortunate. When we spend time in service and giving to those in need we learn to be grateful for what we have.

Service and gifts to others, especially in their time of need, is a living expression of gratitude. It says that while we may want more and better than what we have, we are grateful for that which is ours and willing to give of our time and energy for others. It takes our focus off of the have not’s and turns our attention to what we have.

Give thanks by serving those who have less than you and you will begin to appreciate what you have been given.

Taking Off the Blinders

“Miracles rest not so much upon healing power coming suddenly near us from afar, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for the moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what has been there around us always.”
—Willa Cather

We can get so focused on a thing, a desire, that we lose sight of the big picture and often lose out on other things that come along while we put all of our energy into getting that one thing we want.

Perhaps we focus all of our energy on getting the attention of a particular person, either to be friends, or a romantic relationship. We spin our lives around that person putting lots of energy into finding ways to see them, or gain attention from that person. And once we get it, or maybe when we don’t get it, we realize that there were dozens of other people we completely ignored because we had blinders on seeking to gain the love of one.

And maybe we do this too with our careers or other activities in our lives. We may have our goals set on one particular job and no matter what we do we either can’t get an interview or never get hired when we do. It may be time to set a new goal, find a new place to put our energy.

This isn’t to say we should never have goals or go after what we want. We should set goals and if we want something bad enough we usually get it, but sometimes that is not the case, especially when the outcome of a situation is not in our hands completely. We can’t make another person fall in love with us, and we can’t make someone hire us if they don’t choose to do that.

We focus, we set goals, we strive to be all we can be, but in the meantime we don’t overlook what opportunities are around us. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush as the saying goes. There’s a whole world out there and when we focus too much on a small piece of it we’re bound to miss something. When the signs start telling us to give up on a person, place, or thing, maybe we should do just that and find something else to focus on.

Goals are good, but don’t miss out on living a full life trying to make one happen.

Knowing Our Limits

“A ‘no’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.”
—Mohandas Gandhi

In life whether it is at work, in relationships, groups, churches, families, or anywhere we are involved with others, there are times when we are asked to do more than we can do. What is important is that we know our limits.

We need to know how much we can handle in our lives before we are overwhelmed and stressed out. And sometimes we may be able to handle more than at other times so it isn’t always easy to know from month to month. Remember, too, that it doesn’t matter if someone else can handle more than you, they may be overstressed and neglecting important things out of a need to please by doing so much.

If we are busy doing a lot of different things in our lives, activities beyond work and caring for our homes and families, and we feel like something is getting neglected because we are so busy, it may be time to stop some activity, and it’s important not to take on more. It doesn’t matter if someone thinks we would be the perfect person to fill a need, if we don’t have time to do it and still take care of our current obligations we should say no.

Sometimes it is very hard to say no. We may be flattered that we were asked. We probably want to please whoever asked and those we would serve, but if taking on new tasks is going to cost us something that we are not willing to lose, then we must not do it. If we can give up one obligation to take on a new one, then that’s a possible solution.

The important thing is that we take care of ourselves in this busy world. We get enough sleep, eat right, relax, have fun, and take care of all of our obligations. If there’s room for other things in our lives then it’s not a problem, but taking care of our self must come first or we serve nobody. And when we get overburdened and overwhelmed we don’t have much to offer anyone.

Know your limits and take care of yourself so when you do give it’s out of a healthy place.

Attitude is a Choice

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”
—Jimmy Dean

We often don’t have control over our circumstances, but we are in charge of our attitude. We choose how we wish to respond to the good that happens, the bad events, and all those in between.

We have every opportunity throughout the day to get irritated and frustrated when we have to wait in traffic, or stand in line to purchase our groceries, or make those dreaded calls to customer service where we have to go through minutes of recordings to finally get where we are trying to go only to be told that we have the wrong department. It is hard to maintain a good attitude when we have to wait.

Or what about maintaining a good attitude when our health fails? Knowing that we don’t have a lot of control over our method of treatment if there’s even one available is a strain on any person’s attitude. And if the prognosis is not good, even for the most faith-filled person, it’s hard to keep a positive outlook. But we can do it.

No matter what our battles are, attitude does have a way of helping us cope with what is thrown at us. Anytime we have a positive outlook on something we have more energy and are propelled forward, when we are in the negative mode of thinking we are tired and don’t move much of anywhere.

And we never have to allow another person to choose our attitude. We don’t ever have to allow anyone else to determine our mood or tell us that our way of thinking is wrong. If we have people in our lives that are always seeing the negative side of things, it may be time to find new friends. Having a good attitude keeps us moving forward where negativity just causes us to spin our wheels.

Life has ups and downs. When things don’t work out the way we planned, we make adjustments and move on rather than getting stuck in the “poor me” mode of thinking. A positive attitude will make a difference in our actions.

You have the power to adjust your own sails no matter which way the wind blows.

Showing Love

“We lavish on animals the love we are afraid to show to people. They might not return it; or worse, they might.”
—Mignon McLaughlin

Loving other people and letting them know it can be scary for some. Either we never learned how to show our love or we have been hurt and hold back for fear of more pain and maybe even embarrassment.

When we are afraid to love or to show that we care, we lose out on a lot in life. But there are ways to deal with this issue just as there are with all of the things that we struggle with. We do it a little at a time. We allow for real or perceived failure. We give ourselves the chance at success.

Loving another isn’t reserved for romantic relationships. Some of the strongest bonds have been formed in friendships. Sometimes our lack of ability to show love involves family members. Loving another and letting them know it gives us a gift as well as the person we love.

We all have different ways of letting someone know we love them. Some people will show love by cooking a fabulous meal, others by doing extra chores around the house. Some who are affectionate will give hugs, others may write a letter. No manner of letting others know they are loved is any better or worse than another.

Today, or within the next week, take some time to show someone you love them. Maybe there’s a family member or friend who you feel the need to share that with and haven’t done it. Perhaps someone did something for you in your life that changed you in a good way, helped you down your path in a way that is memorable. Thank them for that. Even if you tell someone you love them often, sometimes doing it in a different way is good because it’s fresh.

And if you show love to someone and it is returned accept it. If it isn’t, just know that it may not be the time for that person to give it back; they may have blocks of their own.

Write a love letter or show love in a new way this week.

Experiencing Relationships

“He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes.”
—Buddha

Upon first reading this quote, I thought of it in regard to love relationships and all of the breakups and arguments that can go along with those. But later it reminded me of something else too. When we are involved in groups, such as 12 Step programs, or members of a church, or any other place where we make lots of friends and we lean on others for support, we also experience more sadness, including deaths and illnesses.

Sometimes it seems that all we do is experience letdowns, pain, and loss. If we never have relationships we won’t experience much of that at all. But like the saying goes, it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. And it is.

We are who we are in part because of relationships. We do most of our growing in relationships too. So we can choose to be free of a certain amount of woes by avoiding any kind of intimacy with other people, or we can experience what life, what God, has to offer through other people.

It is easier in ways to live in our own world and be free of any closeness with anyone for fear of loss and pain, but to live life to its fullest it’s necessary to share ourselves and be shared with. We will experience grief, but also joy, when we are available to others and when we allow others to be available to us. We can choose whether to live a full life or just exist by allowing ourselves to be in closeness with others. We allow our flaws to show and we do the same for other people.

Relationships can bring pain, but they bring joy too.

Beware of Isolation

“Solitude vivifies; isolation kills.”
—Joseph Roux

There are many times in our lives when we just wish we could crawl into a cave and get away from the world and hide from our problems. And while solitude, in small amounts, can be healthy and enlivening, isolation is not good for us.

Something to keep in mind when we pull away from friends and loved ones for any length of time is that prisoners are often put into isolation as punishment. They are kept away from interaction with other people and it often promotes physical deterioration and mental illness in the inmates. This is most likely not what we seek when we choose to isolate.

Most likely we isolate because we feel we’ve failed, or because we don’t think we can talk to anyone about what is going on with us either because they won’t understand or because we just never learned how to open up to others.

As human beings we were created to be social creatures. We were given many abilities that animals don’t have, such as language skills. Nature dictates that we interact with others, not just when we feel happy and upbeat, but also when we feel depressed and even needy. Often our problems are easier overcome when we talk about them, and usually when we hold in our pain or anger it just stays within us and grows.

It’s okay to show ourselves to another, to bear our heart and soul to someone who is willing to listen, who cares. Most of us have friends and family who are willing to do this for us, but if we don’t we may need to seek the help of a therapist, or member of the clergy, or for those in a 12 Step program a sponsor can help.

Most importantly we don’t continue to internalize our problems without asking for help. And we don’t use the self-imprisonment of isolation as a remedy either.

Seek solitude when needed, but avoid isolation.