You've forgotten how to have fun
Somewhere between the responsibilities and the years, fun slipped out the back door and you did not notice it leaving. Now you look at your life — perfectly functional, thoroughly joyless — and you cannot remember how you ever did the thing that once came so easily. You have forgotten how to have fun.
Let me tell you the good news first, because you look like you could use some: you have not lost your fun, you have only misplaced it, the way I once searched the whole village for the donkey I was sitting on. Fun is not a thing you find but a way you show up — lightly, with a bit of mischief — so it comes in with you or not at all. Start absurdly small and let it be silly: dance badly to one song, make a terrible pun, be a little ridiculous, for small foolishness is the seed of all joy. And stop trying to have fun correctly, because fun perishes the instant you supervise it — the moment you ask am I doing this right, it packs its bags and leaves. Drop the grading, do the pointless thing, let yourself be a fool for no reason. What did fun used to look like for you, before it wandered off?
What changes unlock by starting
- You see fun is how you show up, not what you find
- You start small, silly, and low-stakes
- You stop grading whether you're doing it right
- You let yourself be a fool for no reason