A Summer of Happiness with Fun

Helllloo, Thursday and Summer of Happiness bookclubbers! We're making our way through the inspiring chapters of Gretchen Rubin's useful guide, The Happiness Project. This week we're smack dab in the middle of F-U-N. Gretchen challenges herself to add more fun into her life through these resolutions:

• Find more fun.
• Take time to be silly.
• Go off the path.
• Start a collection.

First off, can I say that as a new blogger (here we are in month 3 of Pars Caeli) that I was interested to see how much of this chapter Gretchen filled with comments from her blog readers!

Anyway, this chapter poses the broad question: what do you consider fun? I identified with Gretchen's inner struggle of what I'd like to enjoy and what I do enjoy. Here's a useful definition of fun that she uses:

Fun: an activity that's very satisfying, has no economic significance, doesn't create social harm, and doesn't necessarily lead to praise or recognition.

What goes running through your head? Where do you find the fun in your life?

Remember back to your childhood, when you were 10, what did you love to do? I remember being really delighted to be in the double digits when I turned ten. I spent lots of time swimming, playing tennis, hanging out and playing games with my family, reading, drawing...

Forgive me for not being more interesting...I still love doing all of those things. I've added a few more to the list of fun but that first list is a known quantity. I always have fun when engaged in those activities.

I identified with Gretchen's accumulation and time investment in blank books. Couldn't you just visualize her as a red-headed little girl, parked in front of the TV with a snack and all of her goodies, ready to make her next collage? I used to spend extensive time writing poetry and quotations in "fancy writing" (emergent calligraphy), and coloring the backgrounds so that I could hang them up or save them in a special sketchbook. (Gee, I am totally still 10.)

Here's a notion that stuck with me - the three types of fun.

1. Challenging fun: it's the most rewarding but requires the most work to step outside of ourselves.
2. Accommodating fun: having fun with/for the sake of others. It strengthens relationships and builds memories.
3. Relaxing fun: no coordination or heavy investment necessary but the passivity of it all makes us LESS happy than the accommodating and much less happy than challenging fun.

This blog is totally challenging fun for me. Just sayin'.

Alright. so it's time to set a resolution for the week, based on Gretchen's ideas.

Take time to be silly.

Though I love to joke, I'm not the best at silly. Silly can frustrate me or at least make me want to move on to the next task more quickly. But this week I'm starting off on my journey to put more silly back into my life.

How about you, reader friends? Where will you find some fun this week?

Thanks for stopping over! It's always so lovely to have you here.

XOXO, MJ

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