A hallmark of the beginning of June is the rambunctious noise of children playing all over the city.  The warm weather brings out the best in us, but children should be our role models on how to have fun.  Soon summer holidays will give kids an opportunity to celebrate the end of 10 months of hard work and the beginning of two months of play. Adults look forward to holidays too but for most of us they are a very short 1 or 2 weeks at a time.

Why can't adults create spontaneous enjoyment the other 50 weeks in the workplace? I think what stops most of us from having fun is that we take ourselves too seriously. Every unpleasant event or disappointment becomes a catastrophe and we react to everything - whether large or small - as if our world was collapsing.  It doesn't matter how bad a day a child is having, they still continue to play.  Can we say the same for ourselves? 

Thomas Leonard in article on the Coaching Tips website said,

"How to know if you are taking yourself too seriously ........ or, how to lose 100 virtual pounds

• You don't see the humour in failure and just can't laugh at how human you are
• You ignore your critics, given they are probably correct
• You rigidly believe in your beliefs instead of just enjoying them as fashion accessories
• You can't change on a dime when the truth occurs to you because you have too much invested into the way things are
• You think that what you have to say is terribly important "

We all get a dose of 'Summer Fever' when the warmth of the sun stirs both the earth and something in us. Nature and our human nature start to transform and a feeling of freshness replaces the gloom.  Like children, we all have different activities we love doing at this time of year.  Children embrace those activities with lots of laughter and noise. Unfortunately, many of us have lost the zest to be rambunctious because we have over-committed our lives. 

As adults we have to consciously say no to some commitments to carve out time to play.   When we take breaks for our problems, crises or irritations, we look at things with a different perspective and often see that things really aren't all that bad. 

We also have to say 'no' to being connected to technology 24/7.  Is it the commitment to our jobs or our egos that have many of us taking our laptops on holidays or leaving numbers where we can be called instead of refreshing our bodies and minds?  Do you really believe that we are that indispensable or are we afraid that we are indispensable?

We all need to rediscover the child we once were and come out and play.