Fun & Frivolity

I am a proponent of fun and frivolity.  Perhaps I’ll produce a business card stating that:

There is much heaviness in this pandemic world; we feel the weight of fear, the unknown and our daily responsibilities. To lessen this burden, we must nurture play in our lives.

As a young child in the 70s (yes, I realize I’m dating myself), I grew up with Sesame Street. I recall a song from the show with lyrics that encouraged us to Sing a Song. “Don’t worry if it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear, just sing, sing a song.”

At some point I started worrying that it wasn’t good enough for anyone else to hear. “It” wasn’t necessarily a song. “It” might be a recommendation, an idea or a blog post. “It” might be trying a new sport or revisiting an old sport in a much older body. Worrying whether I was good enough at “it” reduced my joy.  My need to achieve and to be seen in a certain light made the outcome more important than the experience. 

I now want to call on my inner child who, unfortunately, learned to only speak when spoken to, and encourage her to take up more space. 

Inner children, unite! Let’s skip to our next destination, dress up in 80’s attire or wear crazy hats for our next Zoom meeting.  Let’s play a board game with friends. Let’s laugh so hard we hope a bathroom is nearby. 

A little levity will not make us any less effective as leaders, nor less responsible.  Setting aside the grown-up mantle we have cloaked ourselves in, even for a brief time, will allow us to gain perspective and make better decisions. Encouraging fun and frivolity does not eliminate the very real challenges in this world and in our lives, but it may stimulate our creativity and increase our capacity to deal with challenges effectively.

I’m going to turn up the music, sing out loud and dance along. Care to join?

SchultzLeadership.com