You know, the activity done for enjoyment when one is not working–pleasure, leisure, relaxation, fun, enjoyment, entertainment.
And, let’s start by looking at it this way: RE-CREATION.
Our play time, our pleasure time, recreation is literally the time we re-create ourselves. It is the time we allow our systems and brains and nervous systems to filter and redistribute the learnings of our lives.
This is why reducing recess for young children (or encouraging high school students to take heavy course loads and skip athletics or extra curricular activities) is basically insane. We actually cannot learn if we do not have enough play time!
Is it possible that some of what we are seeing in our world—repetitive social, political, educational, religious/spiritual mistakes—are fueled by our inability to learn from those otherwise useful mistakes, because we aren’t taking the time to integrate?
To thrive, we must allow time for recreation, and it must be relational. It needs to be connected to either a real person/people or a real place to actually feed your brain and nervous system correctly. That’s right! Your technology distractions are not recreation.
So, how about you?
Are you playing enough?
Are you experiencing and giving others pleasure on a regular basis?
Do you make time to do what you love?
Do you even know what you love?
Do you make time to re-create with people you care about, as well as on your own?
Where to begin?
While it is only a tiny thing, stopping for 30 seconds three times a day (at least) to breathe, look around wherever you are for something beautiful, looking up and smiling at a nearby person, slowly enjoying a sip of your latte, all of this can be recreation. The only requirement? Presence.
