At the other side of the green I could see the boy jumping up and down in victory. They high fived and went on their way laughing and chatting as they went. You could see the happiness and fun bubbling within them. It was simply a race to have a race, just to have fun. It wasn’t a “workout” or “exercise”.
And then I thought, when does activity go from joy and fun to accomplishment and responsibility? From playing to working out?
While you can sometimes see some happiness and fun within people who are “working out”, the joy often comes at the end, at having accomplished something--that they did something stressful and made it out the other side.
As an adult it seems as activity is to be tolerated for health and body image purposes instead of being active just for the fun of it. We proclaim to be living for the journey, but that doesn’t seem to include our health journey we live for the accomplishment.
I think it’s time to break free and have fun! It’s time to play! And while I know I will probably fall once or twice (or 50 times, as I am ever the graceful athlete) and as long as I don't break a hip, I will get up, brush myself off and start racing across the green!
When is the last time you had actual fun and joy in an activity? Let me know in the comments or on twitter #timetoplay
Interesting post! I love the idea of just having fun while doing athletic activity.
ReplyDeleteI have a lot of little cousins, so my fun and joy in activity it chasing them around in the backyard - never did I think of it as a workout but I guess it kinda is since they have so much energy!
The beginning of this post is very catchy, as a reader it intrigued me very much - good job! I would love to see you expand your ideas a little more. I feel that you have so much to say but instead of fully explaining them you are condensing them into short sentences. While there has definitely been talk throughout ICM 506 about being precise, you don’t want to fall short of getting the message across. Be confident about your ideas and let the world know them!
For instance, you could expand on why you don’t want to just “workout” or “ exercise” and how you think finding fun in active tasks is better for you and others. Or you can add a personal note of a time you worked out and was dreading it until you finished.