min read

Bringing Back the Fun Factor: Reclaiming Your Inner Child Before You Turn into a Fuddy-Duddy

Published on

March 29, 2025

Somewhere between taxes, emails, and making sure the fridge isn’t just a sad display of expired condiments, a lot of us have lost something vital—our ability to have fun. And I don’t mean “fun” like a well-planned weekend getaway or a carefully curated night out. I mean the spontaneous, ridiculous, giggle-until-you-snort kind of fun that kids seem to summon out of thin air. The kind that makes time disappear and responsibilities feel like someone else’s problem for a while.

I didn’t realize how much I had lost touch with this until my daughter came along. She has this magical ability to pull me into her world where rules don’t matter, and everything can be turned into a game. A simple round of charades in our living room can escalate into a full-blown performance, complete with dramatic collapses and Oscar-worthy facial expressions. Somewhere in the middle of flailing my arms around, trying to mime a giraffe eating a pizza, I remember—oh yeah, life is supposed to feel like this sometimes.

It turns out, science backs up what my daughter instinctively knows: play isn’t just for kids. A study published in the American Journal of Play (yes, that’s a real thing) found that adults who engage in regular, unstructured play report lower stress levels, improved creativity, and higher overall life satisfaction. Another study in Psychological Science found that people who regularly engage in playful activities exhibit greater cognitive flexibility and resilience, basically making them better equipped to handle life’s inevitable curveballs. So, when I’m crawling on the floor pretending to be a lion, I’m not just being ridiculous—I’m hacking my brain for greater mental well-being.

Holistically speaking, fun is a necessary ingredient in a balanced life. Without it, we become those permanently exhausted, short-tempered, vaguely grumpy people who sigh too loudly in grocery store lines. Fun is the thing that shakes the dust off our routine, keeps us from becoming all work and no play, and—if we’re lucky—reminds us why life isn’t just about surviving, but actually living.

And yet, somewhere along the way, we get tricked into thinking that fun is something we have to “earn” after all our work is done. But here’s the plot twist: the work is never done. There will always be another bill, another meeting, another load of laundry waiting to ambush you. If you don’t carve out space for joy, no one else is going to do it for you.

So here’s what I’ve learned—when the world is pressing down, the best thing you can do is lighten up. Laugh too loudly. Dance badly in your kitchen. Play an absurd game with your kid (or borrow someone else’s if you don’t have one). Because in the end, when you look back at your life, you won’t be reminiscing about all those emails you answered on time. You’ll remember the times you let go, got lost in the moment, and laughed until your stomach hurt.