The Power of Fun by Catherine Price is a fantastic read for anyone interested in learning more about why fun is so important and how to have more of it in your life.
Pairs With: a Send a Cake explosion box with the Flying Butterfly Surprise inside!
Overview
The Power of Fun by Catherine Price is a fantastic read for anyone interested in learning more about why fun is so important, what stops us from having it, and how to bring it back into your life. Price explains pursuing fun isn’t just “nice to have” but is a ‘must have’ for a fulfilling life. She breaks down The Power of Fun into two parts. Part I is about why you may not be experiencing much fun and Part II is about how to bring fun back into your life.
Part I – Why Having Fun is Hard
There are many factors that can contribute to our lives lacking fun. Price breaks down a few of these in the chapter titled, “Why You Feel Dead Inside.” (I’m not entirely sure what this says about me but this was by far the chapter I highlighted the most… 🙈)
Similar to I Didn’t Do the Thing Today by Madeleine Dore, Price touches on how we live in a society that values productivity over everything else. Without even realizing it, we operate as if time truly is money. And if time IS money we end up feeling like we are wasting our money if we spend our time having fun.
Along with living in a work-driven society, Price explains how smartphones are another major factor in squashing fun. This book is worth buying for this section alone. The research and data around how toxic our phones are was incredible to learn about and completely changed how I view my phone. (Side note: Price has another book called How to Break Up With Your Phone that I need to read next!)
Smartphones and Fun
Cell phones are great at creating fake fun and tricking our brains into thinking scrolling is filling us up. Software engineers have designed apps to keep your attention for as long as possible. They do this by using tactics that will trigger dopamine such as bright colors, constant notifications, and buzzes and sounds. Our brains have gotten so used to the intense dopamine hit we get each time we interact with our phones that life outside of our phones appears dull.
In the real world, we aren’t bombarded with as much stimulus as we have become accustomed to from our phones. Consequently, the real world starts to feel lame… And lame doesn’t usually lead to more fun.
These dopamine tricks have made phones just as addictive as drugs and most of us, whether we’re ready to admit it or not, are addicted to our phones. Price quotes Tristan Harris, “who was a ‘product philosopher’ at Google before he became disillusioned and co-founded the Center for Humane Technology,” as comparing phones to slot machines.
Harris says, “When we swipe down our finger to scroll the Instagram feed, we’re playing a slot machine to see what photo comes next. When we ‘Pull to Refresh’ our email, we’re playing a slot machine to see what email we got. When we swipe faces on dating apps like Tinder, We’re playing a slot machine to see if we got a match” (p. 69).
The problem with all of this in regards to having more fun is that in order to have what Price refers to as True Fun we need to experience Flow, Connection, and Playfulness. However, if we’re constantly distracted and overstimulated by our phones we will miss everyday opportunities for connection, playfulness, and flow.
Part II – How to Have Fun
Since it is likely that we’ve been so busy being productive and then crashing and zoning out on our phones, Price recognizes that many of us may have forgotten what truly brings us joy. She recommends starting your fun journey by keeping a fun journal and noting what fun things happened in your day. Once you’ve identified patterns on what/who is fun for you, you can plan for more of it.
Additionally Price provides various tips like:
- Be “easy-to-laugh” where you can laugh at yourself and just laugh more at the world in general. Not in a mean way, of course, but in a fun way!
- Send out play signals like a dog bowing by cracking jokes and keeping your head out of your phone. By looking around, people will know you’re open to fun.
- Side note: my husband made a joke with a stranger once and the guy responded with, “Oh we’re having fun with this! Ok!!” It’s not often people identify fun, they usually just go along with it but I appreciated him calling it out.
- Seek DELIGHT. “The more you focus on delight, the more delights will reveal themselves to you” (p.232).
- Side note: calling out what brings me delight has been so much fun! I’ve even got my whole family doing it! We’ll point at something pleasant or funny and shout “DELIGHT” and then laugh. Or when something goes wrong (like you spill your water all over the floor) we’ll say “not delight” and then get a laugh out of that. Either way, it’s added more laughter and definitely more delight!
- Put yourself in Fun’s way by doing things that may bring you enjoyment. (Even if you don’t feel like doing it.)
Conclusion
If you’re looking to add more fun to your life then this book is for you! Catherine Price does a great job of explaining some barriers you may be experiencing and provides realistic ways to add more of it to your life. There is something to highlight on every page.
This book is a 10/10 and I can’t recommend reading it enough.
Let me know! Have you read this one or one similar? What are some barriers you feel hold you back from having more fun in your life? Is there something you’ll tweak to help add more of it to your days?
P.S. If you enjoyed this one, you might also like I Didn’t Do the Thing Today by Madeleine Dore!
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