Letting go of the Struggle

Gustave Courbet

Monday August 19th, 2024

I often think of my personal development as a struggle, working hard to release myself from unhelpful ways of seeing, thinking and behaving. It can take a lot of effort and self discipline. Seeming like an uphill battle at times, like Sisyphus forever trying to roll that stone to the top of the hill. Even with all my willpower there comes a moment when my guard is down, my eye off the ball, and wham, there's that unhelpful pattern again. Another one of those 'learning' experiences. It seems that I've been here before, repeating an old mistake that I'm trying to free myself from. Left only to exhort myself to do better next time.

But there's another, a less painful maybe, way to develop as a human being. Using something that is wired into our DNA (along with struggle) and that's Play. As kids we played, learning how to interact with others, how to problem solve and how to be creative. Play moves me from only being a knower to being a learner. Play moves me from only having an opinion to being open to other opinions. Play moves me from the heaviness of struggle to the lightness of being present. Play moves me from the confines of the familiar to the expansiveness of new possibilities. Play puts a smile of my face, even in the darkest of times.

As adults we can lose our sense of play, taking our life a little too seriously. I can take myself, my life, my opinions too seriously sometimes. Sometimes way too seriously.

So I'm thinking, how might I embrace this week with a sense of playfulness?

Is it helpful, I wonder, to gamify my life? Making personal growth less daunting somehow. Should I set weekly missions for myself, bring a more mischievous creativity to living and celebrate the small victories along the way? What if I was an app, how would I set out to get myself hooked?

Could I switch my internal algorithm to Play?