Go Out and Play

I've always loved springtime. That's partly due to how much I hate cold weather, but I think it's mostly about the sense that things are fresh and new again. I love to see the forsythia blooming. There's just something so happy about those sunny yellow blossoms. Seeing them makes me feel optimistic that better times are coming.

Usually, around this time of year, I might talk about spring cleaning, including decluttering and airing out your mind as well as your home. But this week, I'm going to suggest you do something much more fun. Go out and play. If it's nice where you are, I hope you'll do whatever you can to get outside for a while. There's nothing better than fresh air and sunshine to shake off a case of the winter blues.

Getting Fresh Air

I like to walk in the woods or go for a hike. Recently, I visited a trail and it was amazing how much beauty I saw on a simple walk. It reminded me of times I had played in the woods as a child. I walked under the canopy of trees. They're still bare, but in the understory, the bushes are already green, and the early wildflowers are blooming too.

The path followed alongside a stream, and the water sounded almost musical as it rushed over the stones. I crossed the stream on stepping stones and found myself in an open meadow. I passed by a swampy area and heard the tree frogs called spring peepers. They were singing up a storm.

I saw a lot of trees that had been partially felled by the wind a long time ago. They were knocked down, but not destroyed. Some of their roots remained in the ground, and they simply continued to grow despite being sideways. Those trees had a unique kind of beauty, their twisted trunks all covered in moss. It was just an ordinary walk in some ordinary woods on an ordinary spring day, but it felt like a celebration of life after the long dark winter we've just endured.

While I was out there, I was thinking about the Japanese practice of shinrin yoku, which translates as forest bathing. It's a deliberate practice of getting outside under the trees and absorbing the atmosphere as a way to de-stress and to lift your spirits. It's also a way of remembering our connection to the natural world.

You can go to specialized places to forest bathe and you can spend lots of money doing it if you want to. But if you have a nature trail nearby, you can just do it yourself. And early spring is a great time to do it, because everything is just reawakening, and there is a sense of fresh newness.

If going to the woods isn't your thing, you can still connect with nature by visiting a nursery. It's wonderful to stroll through the greenhouses in springtime. You can smell the damp earth. You can smell the fresh growing things. It's still a little early to plant most things here, and my distaste for yard work is well documented, but I still enjoy seeing all the little plantlets.

When you are feeling tired of the same old same old, there's nothing like learning something new to freshen things up. And if you can do it in the spirit of play, it can be much more enjoyable. When you allow yourself to play, your goal is simply to enjoy the experience, rather than focusing on the outcome. Who's keeping score anyway?

Rediscovering Play

Everyone has had the experience of trying something new with expectations attached. You feel pressured to perform. You feel pressured not to make mistakes. But when you're just messing around, you become free to explore, to try things, to learn by doing, and to make serendipitous discoveries. Play lets your natural creativity come out. And I truly believe every human being has creative abilities.

Play is a way to discover not only what you're good at, but also what lights you up. And play can be just about anything that you enjoy, as long as it's done for the joy of doing it. I think it's way too easy to lose sight of the value of play.

When you get to be an adult, we are told it's time to put away childish things. It's time to think about things like work and money and raising a family and taking care of your health and paying taxes and being responsible. Although I enjoy my work, it's certainly not play.

And if the only time you play is on vacation, you're not playing enough, my friend, even if you take three or four weeks off in a year's time. Play is letting yourself rejoice in being alive. Limiting that to a few days a year is not healthy.

We all need regular doses of joy to be mentally healthy and happy. And play is the best way I know to find that joy. Play can also help you connect with others. And connection is one of the things that helps us humans stay positive and engaged with life.

One of my favorite ways to connect through play is by playing bunko with a group of friends. There is hardly a game more mindless, than bunko and there is no skill involved, but there is always a lot of laughter. I leave bunko night every time feeling happier, and I can hardly wait until we can play again.

I hope now that the weather is turning sunnier and warmer, you'll find new opportunities for play especially outside. More than that, I hope you will make opportunities to play.

There is ultimately nothing that brings the freshness of springtime to my mental state, like learning something new that's also fun for me. Every time I choose to learn something, I'm reminded that the world is a wondrous place. It's filled with so many interesting things.

I know, I know. We're supposed to be cool and sophisticated, to be cynical and jaded. But honestly, isn't that a lousy way to live? A reawakening of playfulness can be one of the great pleasures of springtime, and it would be a shame to miss it.