Having FunYet ?

Never, ever underestimate the importance of having fun.

Randy Pausch

I remember learning to read. My mother had purchased some workbooks intending to teach me to read. The process started with short drills to learn the letters and their sounds. There were little games of repetition designed to be fun for the pre-schooler. Soon we were spelling two and 3-letter words. I got hung up on the three-letter homonyms son and sun. I couldn’t keep them straight, and I didn’t care; it wasn’t fun anymore. I peeked at the next page and saw a picture of a row boat. At the time, I had never been on a floating craft. But I knew what they were, and I knew they were fun. I asked that we learn how to spell “boat.” My perplexed mother explained that we should stay with three-letter words since they were still problematic and that it was best not to move on until mastered. But I had already seen the letters B-O-A-T below the picture, and to our surprise, that was enough for me to know how to spell boat. Before long, the workbook went by the wayside, and my mother chose instead to teach me fun words like “dinosaur.”

It is pretty elegant that having fun is pivotal to both productivity and human connection. Not surprising to me that one of my oldest memories is an excellent example of this. So after you “like ” this post, go have fun with family and friends.