Yesterday evening I went to play soccer. I have not been having much fun with my soccer this season. I don’t know why, I just haven’t. I’ve felt no drive off the field and pissed off on it. My play has been tight, angry, with no risk-taking and no flow. It’s like I put my game inside a big rock and from that rock I carved a mask of grim determination and I have been wearing it, grey and hard, over my face.
I’m getting tired of not enjoying the things I do for fun.
So before I left the house, I declared, “Today in my game I will cultivate joy.” I asked myself, “What is my favorite thing to do on the soccer field, something of which I have full control?” I answered that I love beating someone for pace. So I set this goal: that at least twice in the match, once in each half, I would try to dribble by a defender. I didn’t have to beat him, I just had to try.
I gave myself permission to just go for it, and go for it I did. A couple of times in each half I found the ball at my feet and saw space around the defender and I revved myself through the gears and pushed the ball toward that space, and I found a freedom that I hadn’t seen in my game in I don’t know how long, and I smiled and I laughed and I smiled.
For those of us fortunate enough to have put aside *making money* as a reason we play the games we play, what keeps us playing? Only one answer makes sense: we go out to these parks and play these silly games because doing so makes our lives more full, more joyful, *better.* Let us begin, then, to find the parameters within our control that enable us to shatter these grim masks and reveal us underneath, smiling.