The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again

by Catherine Price

The pursuit of True Fun helps us stay true to our authentic selves, with less time spent on mindless distraction and empty pursuits and more time devoted to people, experiences, and activities that bring us a sense of meaning and joy.

True Fun is the confluence of playfulness, connection, and flow. Whenever these three states occur at the same time, we experience True Fun.

Distraction is probably the greatest offender, since it gets in the way of all three. If we are at all distracted—if our attention is split—we cannot experience True Fun,

Judgment is also a fun killer.

The fact that playfulness, connection, and flow are all active states also means that anything that could be described as passive consumption cannot, by definition, generate True Fun on its own.

“The greater the proportion of face-to-face interactions, the less lonely you are,”

“The greater the proportion of online interactions, the lonelier you are.”

we end up relying on external validation to prove our self-worth, obsessively documenting our experiences so that we can offer evidence on social media that we are Fun and Interesting People (never mind the fact that you can’t be that interesting if you’re spending all your time on social media, and you can’t be having that much fun if you’re constantly interrupting your experiences to post photographs of them).

“The easiest way to have more humor…is not to try to be funny—instead, just look for moments to laugh.”