Finding Joy in Adulthood through Play
For many of us, as we age we find ourselves losing parts of ourselves that we had in childhood. Whether that’s a sense of wonder or imagination we find that the realities of life and adulthood come with a cost. Hardening occurs when we experience the pressures of life and the difficulties of aging. As a therapist I often explore with my clients a concept that we lose through aging. The art of play.
As a young undergraduate student I had the pleasure of taking a class on the Psychology of Play. While I was in art school at the time, and surrounded by brilliant artists, I had a passion for understanding what makes play so imperative to our development. This class shined a light on the developmental, social, and emotional value of play.
But how do we define play? We all remember playing games as kids and the joy that it brings us. A joy, uninhibited joy, is something we seem to lose as adults. From what we know based on rigorous research it is clear play provides value well beyond simple developmental learning. Yes, we learn rules, social mores, and how to interact within a system through games but what catalyzes this is joy. The question I raise then is how do we cultivate this type of joy in an increasingly adult world.
It is imperative that we cultivate this type of joy. We as humans require sustenance in the form of play to bring balance to the harsh edges that come with aging. As a simple matter of observation, one can simply look at our aging populations on how play affects us. Those in elder care systems who engage with play-like activities often lead to longevity and health through aging. Senior centers invariably provide programming through games, more than any other programming. Whether it’s Corn Hole, Bingo, or Poker we see our aging populations engage in play activities. So why is play represented as an inverse bell curve? We play so much as children, weening off as adults, and then return to it as elders.
I posit that eliminating that bell curve can lead to lifelong joy by engaging in play. By bringing play continuously through our lives we allow ourselves to healthily regress to childhood joy. Nothing is so unbridled as the joy we feel as children. There is no reason that we have to lose that. I personally host a weekly game night with friends to live this practice. With all the harshness of life why not allow ourselves to once again be within a world of joy, silliness, and play?
