TL;DR
We need fun to be mentally well and balanced in life.
Learn to build a sense of humor.
Find fun ways to decorate and play with your body.
Play and invent games.
Make holidays special with creative new ways to do things.
Find fun projects and activities that you can explore.
Seek fun things that businesses do as well.
Why bother having fun?
We need fun as much as work for a healthy life:
- When we finish working, we recharge our minds with relaxation and recreation.
- Most religions believe in a dedicated day of rest, and science has proven that it makes people 150% more productive.
- If we don’t schedule sabbaths, sabbaticals, vacations, breaks, aimless walks, and time off, life becomes repetitive and meaningless.
We are having fun when we’re experiencing joy, focused on the moment, and have lost track of time.
- This is difficult to do if we’re stressed or have been busy working hard.
Each person has their own interpretation of “fun”:
- Finding out what’s fun to you requires self-awareness.
- You understand what you like when you can describe it to someone else.
- For some people, bricklaying or cleaning is fun!
We can have fun even when we’re not doing designated “fun” things:
- Learning and creative projects are often just as fun as relaxing.
- In fact, if you’ve found a career you love, your work is often fun.
Boredom is the best time to have fun:
- Boredom is typically from not being creative in that moment.
- We tend to lose our creative edge as we get older.
- Children can typically have fun with anything, anywhere.
- Consuming tons of media (as opposed to creating) inhibits our ability to have fun.
- Boredom often compounds because our boredom tends to bore others.
The easiest cure for boredom is to plan ahead:
- Write down fun things as you think of them, then consult your list when you’re bored.
- Go through webpages or online things you’ve saved.
- Keep a list of things you’re curious about, then read up on them later.
If you can’t find something fun to do, spend time around children:
- A child can have fun with mundane objects like a piece of paper or a cup.
- At one time, you were able to have as much fun as any other child, but forgot.
Try new things, but deepen your appreciation of familiar things:
- This all depends on your personality, so find your personal balance between exploring familiar and unfamiliar things.
Avoid fun that creates long-term issues
Avoid addictive substances and recreational drugs:
- While substances like street drugs and alcohol are fun, they won’t let you have fun indefinitely from the health problems you’ll face.
- The best fun is the type that you can have for the rest of your life.
Be careful with permanent tattoos:
- Before you get a tattoo, think of what you would have gotten five or ten years ago.
- Hang a picture of the tattoo somewhere you’ll see it every day for a year to be sure you want it.
- If you’re bald and self-conscious about it, get a tattoo of hair stubble on your head.
Anything you do too much can become an addiction, so add variety to everything you do.
Find a sense of humor
Humor is highly contextual to culture and background, so there’s no easy explanation that applies to all contexts.
Every mentally well person will find humor in various small things:
- We all have silly idiosyncrasies and quirks.
- Everyone tends to have at least one severe defect that brings about entertaining misadventures.
If you don’t believe you’re particularly funny, it’s a trainable skill:
- Spend time analyzing and considering how your favorite comedians are funny.
- Find small observations about apparent things that don’t make sense.
- Learn how to exaggerate and express extreme behavior, even if you’re by yourself.
Play games
Games are simplified life:
- Games, like life, have rules, requirements, conflicts, social interaction, challenges, and resource management.
- Throughout life starting from early childhood, playing games has many psychological benefits.
Since they’re the most interactive and give the most feedback, play games that require hand-eye coordination.
Avoid over-hyped things
Instead of doing what everyone else likes, try to find the hidden things everyone else overlooked.
If something is wildly popular, it will likely have diminished in quality by the time you’ve experienced it.
- Waiting in line to eat something famous is rarely worth the wait.
Always be on the lookout for little ways to have fun.