What Is Fun? Can I Have It? Will We Ever Have It Again?

“What is fun, exactly? Unlike happiness, fun is not a state of being, though happy people do often report having fun. “Fun” is not an action verb like “play,” though of course, it can be sparked by an action. Fun isn’t necessarily guaranteed by leisure time or access to things considered to be leisure — vacations, rest — though you could argue that these things would free a person up to have more fun. And unlike pleasure, which sparks a very specific cortisol response in the brain (and has been studied in rats and humans), it is challenging to analyze a brain on fun, in part because for humans, fun inevitably becomes unfun as soon as you’re sitting in a brain scanner — and how to tell if a rat is having fun?

“Fun is elusive,” said Harry Reis, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. Not only is there nothing universally considered fun — what is deemed fun varies, as you might expect, across class, culture, identity and age, among other factors — but fun is also a feeling, and feelings are difficult to plan, organize or concoct; everyone knows that forced fun is not real fun.

Fun is: You know it when you’re having it.

Dr. Reis suggested to keep a fun diary: a record of day-to-day activities, which you would then rate from 0 to 10 on a fun scale, effectively turning the pursuit of fun into homework. But the goal, he said, was to help remember what you truly found fun.”

Read the complete article at The New York Times

✨Discussion: In recent years, the state of the world has made it difficult to have fun. Understandably, events like the pandemic have made fun almost foreign to a lot of us. As humans, we have frequently allowed the possibly of fun to be overshadowed by negativity.

So, make an effort to allow yourself to explore what you find fun. Everyone’s idea of fun is different. Keep note of events, hobbies, sports, etc… and rate them on how much you had fun doing them. Then look back and try to notice a pattern. The pattern will reveal what you found the most fun!

✨Reflection: What’s something you find fun?

#Fun #Wellbeing #Wellness #Happiness #Health