play

I decided while in college that a life without structure was one doomed to mishaps and blunders. Program your work, I told myself, and then work your program. By the end of my freshman year, I had begun to schedule my time with great sufficiency. Graduating three years later, the scheme appeared to have worked.

The adage that if it is not broken, you should not fix it, locked into my thinking. It felt only natural when I began my professional life to re-engage those means, which had managed my time in college. Again, affording me great organization in most of my career choices, the “always-schedule” approach lasted for years.

Perhaps due to the turmoil of our present day economy, or the number of natural disasters worldwide lately or maybe because I am just getting older and wiser.—my attitude toward time utilization changed. I cannot explain why it happened. It became not only important that I maintained goals in life, but that I include play in those goals.

The idea seemed risky at first. Years of a self-imposed straightjacket of work, work, and work–sought to undermine my intentions.

“You are not serious about this juvenile behavior, are you?” my straightjacket self wanted to know. The fraternal twin, Guilt and Disrepute gave her an Amen!

I would not hear them out. Instead, to welcome my newfound appreciation for play, I immediately took off my shoes and went outside to walk barefoot in the rain. A sheer pleasure, in which I had not engaged since a child.

That night, my straightjacket self apologized for over-reacting and causing me to do such a rebellious thing. She said, “Unlike the subconscious mind, the conscious part of me occasionally makes mistakes.”.

Gently, I nodded.

“I’m glad we had this little talk. No real harm done.” She smiled. Emitting a kind of smugness.

Early, the next morning, I phoned Janet. Overwhelmed by a schedule of her own, she right away supported the notion that we take the whole day off and head for Venice Beach.

“Why not? What is the point of living in LA if you don’t occasionally get the chance to breathe a little ocean air?” Janet clicked off her cell phone in glee.

Around seven, after setting the dishwasher, my scheduling self sat me down for a yet a second talk. “Is this getting out of hand, do you think? You bring home dinner from a deli because you spent all day gabbing with Janet?”

Properly upbraided, I opened my laptop and effortlessly wrote the next 10 pages to my novel. Then with all those ocean-charged ions still floating in my brains, I went to bed and slept like a baby. When I read my novel entry next day, I found that the 10 pages needs very little editing.

Oh my gosh, I was on to something. The more I played—was my writing getting better?

Hearing my thinking, my scheduling self objected in hasty rebuttal.

“Don’t you dare!” she uncompromisingly declared. “Don’t even think I’ll let you get away with such childishness again.”

I kept a straight face.

Close to a year has passed since the day Janet and I bummed around in the ocean’s wave while forgetting most of what comprised our equally demanding To Do lists. Now, play is what we take time to do now–every chance that we can.

Mind you, we still accomplish the items on our To Do lists. In fact, we write play into out lists. For me, the balance achieved by including such energy-producing sessions in my life makes all the difference in the world.

Even my subconscious self seems content with the change. I don’t know how, but in the acceptance of my new agenda, she managed to lose her straightjacket. One day at the pier, both of us enjoying a window-shopping stroll with Janet, our menacing tyrant dropped her whip and just left. Five points for play, zero for a stress-filled existence.