Are We Forgetting to Have Fun?

With summer upon us, our favorite places opening back up to full capacity, and the ability to see our loved ones again - we should be having a blast! However, it can also be easy to feel overwhelmed during this time. This Psychology Today article dives into addressing how COVID-19 may have impacted the way that we view "fun.” Read the article in its entirety using the link below.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-antidepressant-diet/202107/are-we-forgetting-have-fun

“Have fun!” How often have we said this to a family member, a friend, or a neighbor going off for a weekend or just an afternoon or evening? I was puppy-sitting a neighbor’s recently acquired dog when she went off to a dentist appointment. “Have fun!” I called after her. Then, I felt like an idiot. Who has fun going to the dentist?

But it occurred to me that being able to leave the house to attend to routine appointments like a teeth cleaning probably feels...if not like fun, then at least a diversion from the restrictions of this past year. Certainly going to have one’s hair cut, or buying plants at a garden center, are activities we had to forgo a year ago, or do with caution and perhaps anxiety over being exposed to COVID-19. A friend who ventured into her supermarket once a week told me that this was her major entertainment, indeed her only positive diversion. ”I used to hate food shopping but during the pandemic, it became fun.”

Her experience brings up the definition of fun. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, its definition of fun sets a relatively low bar for having fun. The puppy sings to her squeak toy and watching her is fun. A bus tour of an unfamiliar city is fun. Kayaking without (or maybe with) getting soaked is fun. Learning how to make bread in a cooking class for novices is fun.

And, in contrast, we all know when we are not having fun, e.g. getting our teeth cleaned, traveling by air, waiting to renew a driver’s license, listening to an interminable after-dinner speech, being on hold with the internet provider. The list of unfun situations seems to grow as each day goes on.

But are we paying attention to situations that are providing amusement and enjoyment? Or in response to our overcommitted lives, Thosare we not even noticing when something could be giving us pleasure?

Learning to appreciate what's fun

There are people who are unable to take pleasure in situations or relationships that fit the definition of fun. Such individuals are said to be experiencing anhedonia. They feel incapable of even attempting to find pleasure; nothing brings them “fun’” and often they withdraw from social interactions or activities because they seem pointless. Anhedonia is associated with depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder. But this inability to be impervious to experiencing pleasure can be reversed with the treatment of these disorders.

Yet what about those of us who do not have mental health disorders, but are so overwhelmed with our commitments, obligations, and responsibilities that we don’t even recognize fun when we are in front of it?

My neighbor told me that she was in a line of cars that stopped at a very busy intersection because a mother duck and several ducklings were, very slowly, crossing the street. Almost everyone stuck their head out of their car windows to take pictures and smile at the “Make Way for the Ducklings” parade. But one driver scowled at the birds and yelled at them to hurry up. Clearly this driver, unlike the others near him, was not allowing himself to derive pleasure from the scene; i.e., to have fun.

A young mother told me that she has to keep reminding herself to take pleasure in her children even when what they do increases her work and exhaustion. “I had just washed the kitchen floor—a big mistake to do before lunch—when my toddler upended a bowl of mashed bananas on her head and then threw the rest on the floor. My first response was to be annoyed and angry. But she was giggling and I began to laugh as well. She will grow up and forget this but I won’t...It was fun!”

We often plan events and encounters with others that we anticipate will bring us pleasure. And unless something unexpected happens, we get enjoyment in such activities. But it is really the unplanned events and encounters that often end up giving the most joy. A few days ago, while doing an errand, someone called to me from across the street. It was someone I had not seen for 20 years. What fun to be able to catch up and reminisce; what an unexpected pleasure.

Many years ago, our laboratory area was witness to an impromptu fashion show when one of the researchers who was engaged to be married came back from shopping at a heavily discounted bridal outlet with several gowns. She wanted all of us to tell her which one to get and during lunch, changed into several gowns and then walked up and down the hall in front to show them to us. (It was an MIT version of “Say Yes to the Dress.”) Everyone got involved, from the director of the laboratory to the dishwasher. It was fun.

We might overlook the pleasure that our taking pleasure in something (or someone) gives others. A shared laugh, story, or experience, even with a stranger, improves the moods of everyone. And often, if we hold onto the memory of the fun experience, watching a parade of ducks or meeting an old acquaintance while going about the mundane experiences of the day, it makes the stress of those unfun encounters so much more bearable.