Fun will play on anybody's playground
The question is, will you let it play on yours?
Here we are in Installment #1 of Ruby’s Very Good Thing.
Through the lens of The Hero’s Journey story structure we find Ruby, our HERO, in the comfort and safety of her ORDINARY WORLD…
Heroes have both FATAL FLAWS and SIGNATURE STRENGTHS. One of Ruby’s most signature Signature Strengths is an aptitude for turning things into games….
With just a little imagination Ruby could turn what might otherwise feel drudgerous into something so enjoyable that time disappeared.
And even more fun than “Tag-Hanger-Coat-Dollar” was…
Our Ruby loves to play. Always has. Soon we’ll find out that her predilection for ‘fun and games’ is not only one of her greatest strengths, it is also… her fatal flaw. Yes, simultaneously her superpower AND her Achilles heel.
But I’m getting ahead.
Here in Installment 1 we are celebrating this particular orientation to life as a GOOD THING. As well as going into why an aptitude for play is something worth getting going on. Particularly as an adult.
Why PLAY is a good thing to get going on…
LOTS has been written about the power of play and few write about it as thoroughly and thoughtfully as researcher Peter Gray.
He says…
…an activity is PLAY to the degree that it contains these characteristics…
1. Play is self-chosen and self-directed
Which means it’s voluntary. You’re not obliged to play, you do it just because you want to. You choose to do it.
Or said another way….
2. Play is intrinsically motivated
Which means that the ‘means’ (WHAT you’re doing and HOW you’re doing it) are more important than the end result.
Or said another way…
3. Play is guided by mental rules
Which means that play is always structured by rules or concepts that the players either invent or freely adopt.
Or said another way…
4. Play is always creative, usually imaginative
Which means there is a flip side to play’s rule-based nature — which is its imaginative nature.
Or said another way…
Ruby has got all four of these bases covered!!
In the comfy confines of her 7’ x 7’ coat check room, what could be mind-numbingly boring in its routine repetitiveness — putting coats onto and taking coats off of hangers for hours and hours, day after day — feels, instead, like a par-TAY!
With the power of play Ruby transforms the limitations of her coat checking box into the perfect place to explore the playground of her mind. This ninja move makes her more than a star employee, it makes her a designer of delight!…. a generator of joy!… a master of make-beleive!… a specialist in ‘unnecessary challenges’!
The Unnecessary Challenge in “Tagged! You Are IT!”
When playing “Tagged! You Are IT!”, the ‘unnecessary challenge’ Ruby gives herself is using the moment she hands a patron their coat check tag to “tag them” with a smile. They become “it” when they receive the smile.
The reason this is so challenging is 1) eye contact must be made, otherwise her smile is missed on them, and 2) it needs to be a genuine smile she tags them with, otherwise even if they see it, they likely won’t be moved to return it — which needs to happen in order to make Ruby “it” again so she can keep the game going.
Ruby loves the idea of playing to keep the game going as opposed to playing to win — a way of thinking that she got from the book Finite and Infinite Games: Two Ways to Play the Game of Life by James Carse. It’s an idea that informs so much more than just her coat checking games. It’s a life philosophy.
The Unnecessary Challenge in “Tag-Hanger-Coat-Dollar”
When she’s playing “Tag-Hanger-Coat-Dollar”, the ‘unnecessary challenge’ is seeing how fluid she can keep her movements as she receives a tag from a patron, finds its matching hanger, puts the tag back on the hanger, removes the coat from the hanger, gives the coat to the patron who then (more often than not) rewards her with a dollar (or more!)… and then flow into doing the same thing all over again with the next patron.
It takes a lot of relaxed energy, a lot of concentration, a lot of staying with it — which is exactly why it’s a game worth playing. The game itself may be ‘an unnecessary challenge’, but the things she gets out of playing it are very necessary.
And the irony of it all is that when her focus is on playing “Tag-Hanger-Coat-Dollar” to the best of her ability rather than on ‘making a buck’, patrons respond to her beautiful energy by pulling fivers out of their wallets rather than ones!
Is there really a downside to this way of operating?
What we’re going to find out in subsequent installments is that Ruby’s venture into the unknown, for she will end up leaving her coat room, has to do with bringing ‘great playing’ and ‘great working’ together in a way that allows her to live life on her own terms.
And while what she does in her coat room is good training for what she’s going to need to master, there’s no way she can do it if she never leaves her coat room. Much as she loves it in there.
How about you?
Is play part of your repertoire? Or has it fallen out of the line-up for some reason? Has “adulting” taken over and sucked the fun out of your existence? Maybe not completely, but enough to want to inject a little more fun and games back into your m.o.?
EFT TAPPING
If so, today’s tapping is for the purpose of calling on the part of ourselves that knows how to play and tapping IN some cool understandings and reminders around the power of play.
By tapping as we articulate them, we’ll be communicating with our unconscious mind — reminding the biggest part of ourselves that we want “more of this, please.”
Thanks for tapping along!
Join me for the next installment of Ruby’s Very Good Thing — When Things don’t go your way — where she receives the inevitable CALL TO ADVENTURE…
