Time To Play

Work – work – work – kids – work – chores – kids – work – bed! Is this your normal day or week? We can do so much better when time is made available to play. Guilt free time that allows us the head space to reboot, debunk and rebuild.

A TIME TO PLAY

All too often we are focused on the serious stuff in life – on getting things done, on the things we haven’t gotten done and the consequences of our actions and inaction. All doom and gloom and heavy focus – when are we meant to sit down and have fun, enjoy ourselves and play?!

I am reminded of a passage from the bible, you may be surprised to have Mike Pagan quoting the scriptures at you, but I have to admit this was first brought to my attention watching that wonderful eighties film “Footloose” with good old Kevin Bacon. He quotes the following verses when arguing the point that the young people of the town should be allowed to dance because dances were illegal in the town at that time.

Ecclesiastes 3 – New Living Translation

A Time for Everything

For everything there is a season,

a time for every activity under heaven.

A time to be born and a time to die.

A time to plant and a time to harvest.

A time to kill and a time to heal.

A time to tear down and a time to build up.

A time to cry and a time to laugh.

A time to grieve and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.

A time to embrace and a time to turn away.

A time to search and a time to quit searching.

A time to keep and a time to throw away.

A time to tear and a time to mend.

A time to be quiet and a time to speak.

A time to love and a time to hate.

A time for war and a time for peace.

A time for everything. Whether you are religious or not it is a really powerful parable to live your life by. It almost covers every part of one’s life, be that positive or negative situations that we all have to deal with or endure.

For everything there is a season – to work hard, to change course, to reflect on those lost or those born. I use the word play because for me it covers many positive situations that we all have in our lives that regularly get pushed down the agenda because other more serious/important/urgent things take over.

How often have you made time in the last week, month or year to play?

How often have you had a really good belly laugh, to the point that it hurt?

When did you last let your hair down and splash in puddles?

Not everything has to be done according to an agenda or structure, be spontaneous and do something different, creative or maybe even naughty (I didn’t say illegal). Go on, treat yourself to some more fun today – next week – next year. It’s unlikely to kill you and may well put a smile on your face so you can laugh more.

There is a time to cry and a time to laugh, sadly too many people do too much crying and not enough laughing – buy a DVD of your favourite comedian, book some tickets to watch a comedy show go and see a pantomime! Just do something and make time to play.