FUN

Who wants to have fun? I do. Try saying the word ‘fun’ while frowning. It is hard but if you really try and push yourself, you can do it. Now stop doing that and see what happens. You might be smiling right now. The still silent voice in you wants a few simple things for you, it wants you to do what fully engages you and makes your heart expand in such a way that you know you can never be tired of what you are doing.

The call that comes from deep within wants you to have joy and bliss and adventure and excitement. It wants you to let go of the drama you think you have to have and live the adventure you would love to have. It is all about attitude. So often we are told that we need to change our attitude and there are numerous disciplines for doing so.

Create an ‘anchor’, force yourself to smile to be happy. To be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic. Fake it until you make it. Seriously people, what a crock. It is really tough to do this stuff. I want you to take the easy way. Don’t get me wrong, it can be a challenge to disengage from guilt tripping yourself into inflicting pain so that you can gain. If you don’t know what creating an ‘anchor’ is, no need to worry we won’t be learning about it here. In fact don’t create an anchor to trigger happy thoughts, don’t make yourself happy, don’t act enthusiastic and especially don’t fake it. Being authentic is blissful and it is much easier than most people think.

Getting to this state of authentic bliss starts with seeking what you love. The single greatest test of what you love is this, is it fun? Now, fun is a funny thing. It comes in all shapes and sizes and all sorts of varieties. Most people think there are only a few kinds of fun. There’s the happy, laughing, celebrating kind and then there’s the guilty pleasure kind and then there’s the bedroom kind and then there’s the kind where you win something or other. That’s pretty much it right? What about the others?

I want to ask you to broaden your definition of fun. Think of these as fun if you can… stretching in the morning, sleeping in, waking up with someone special or waking up and having the bed all to yourself, squeezing oranges for orange juice and seeing the juice drip into the glass, seeing the sunlight shine through the window, the satisfying feeling of tying your shoelaces nice and tight, having a choice of what to wear, the excellent feeling you get when you get paid, the feeling of spending money, the feeling of receiving a package in the mail, having a friend make fun of you, being there for a friend, seeing your family or successfully avoiding them, getting that job you wanted, taking on challenges in that job, learning something fascinating, accepting how little you really know, being part of something larger that expands you, solving a problem, getting carried away with telling a story, watching someone really lose it and be ok about it and the list goes on. Frankly, fun can be had with so much more than we think. One lady I know discovered that the most fun she had was when she was vacuuming the floor. This became a meditation and her whole life began to shift as her heart opened. Maybe I will tell you the full story of the vacuuming lady later, but know this, as I recall it I have tears in my eyes and I love it. It is bliss. It is fun.

What about the things that are not fun? Sometimes what we see as a drama today will be remembered as an adventure tomorrow. The sooner you are able to see your dramas as adventures the more enjoyable your life will be. This is the beginning of wisdom, we see life as an adventure to be lived and loved. It can be done. The secret is to step into the unknown, but not too far, to leave our old self behind but bring our wisdom with us. One of my mentors used to say, the only thing they cannot take away from you is your wisdom and your love, he seemed to bring it up whenever we had a conversation. I imagine that he saw what was going to happen in my life, I held onto those words as I lost a fortune and gained deeper experience of the depths of my heart.

We have wisdom in us, we all do. Sometimes we ignore it, sometimes we pay attention to it. Some would say that when we have ‘bad things’ happen that it means that we ignored our own wisdom. Everyone has their own criteria for what a ‘bad thing’ or a mistake actually is. Years later a bad thing or the most horrific mistake may seem like the best thing in the world. From my personal life, I always planned on having two children and I was very clear about it. To cut a long story short, I simply cannot imagine life without my third daughter. Among many things, she teaches me how to simply go for what you want. She shows me that I actually can handle more joy than the massive amounts that the first two girls have given me.

The wisdom we have in us, that still quiet knowing that whispers the truth despite our delusions seems to have understanding well beyond what we can imagine. It leads us down paths that may or may not seem the best or the safest or the most healthy at the time but which in the end often seem wondrous.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” –Shakespeare, Hamlet

One of the few things you can be certain of is that there is much beyond your understanding. To argue points of philosophy with people over what should or should not work in your life or their life or how they should live or not live does not seem to yield reliable outcomes. We can lament the sorry state of the world until the cows come home but there will always be different ways of looking at things. Those cows I mentioned will be gladly devoured by some and revered as sacred by others. So it is my intention to keep this all very simple.

My intention is to help guide you toward your own inner wisdom that seems to want you to engage inactivities that you think are meaningful and that you feel fulfilled by. The point is this, following only your head or only your heart just doesn’t seem to cut it. After years of working with hundreds of people on bringing their inspiration into the real world, after doing it myself, I have found that you need both. If this sounds incredibly basic to you, as though everyone knows that, fantastic! When the rubber hits the road this kind of clarity of understanding does not always come into the real world. If needing both your head and your heart does not seem like something you can accomplish, perhaps you would benefit from doing a Purpose Profile.