Trumping Anxiety
Playfulness outcompetes worry and anxiety.
Most people find it hard to worry less, so the way out is to find something playful to do, a distraction or a hobby, or get into mindfulness meditation.
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As we get educated and become adults, we get tied up in our accomplishments and careers, following the generally accepted ways of living and behaving in society. We become stuck in a self-made routine and rigidity, taking life too seriously.
Ultimately, in this routine of work, responsibility and life's affairs, misery sets in, giving rise to boredom, depression, and stale relationships.
Playfulness is the lesser-known and under-appreciated antidote to unhappiness, boredom, and stuckness of life.
As we become less rigid and constrained, our playful nature builds new, unexplored connections and makes us see possibilities we missed before.
Playfulness is associated with being childish or superficial, which is a myth. A playful person tends to be vulnerable and intimate, resulting in better relationships.
If we are not depressed, addicted to substances, or sad, we tend to have lesser relationship issues.
Playfulness works as good as deep breathing or mindfulness meditation to remove any stress you may have.
We need to stop exhausting our brain analyzing, judging, comparing, and solving complex problems in our lives and just play for some time.
We become smarter and more creative as we get more playful, as we start to think flexibly and outside the box.
Games and certain exercises that jog our brain in creative ways gives us a much needed mental break.
If we are working towards developing a new skill, like learning to play the guitar, or a new language, it helps to turn it into a playful game.
As we play games, learn new skills and meet new people, refining our work and focusing our energy positively, we start to nurture and build our identity, resulting in diversification and new ways of earning money.
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It is a myth that experts commit fewer errors than beginners. The Dunning-Kruger Effect states that people who are bad at something are often unaware of the fact, and are overestimating their performance.
There is an advantage in having a beginner’s mindset even as our skills and knowledge develop, something that is not available even to the experts.
According to Sigmund Freud, mental disorders and destructive behavior patterns are more or less related to our inner child, which most of us fail to see directly.
Our inner child needs to be acknowledged, accepted, nurtured and loved, instead of being denied, neglected, abandoned and rejected.
We’ve all experienced that flash of insight, that fleeting moment when a solution we’ve been grinding away at reveals itself in an unexpected place.
Einstein, for example, was known to play violin whenever he was stuck on a tough problem and often spoke of how music influenced the way he thought about math and science.