Funless

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“What do you see when you look at me?” Ned asked at our initial session.

I carefully studied his tired face and eyes, the slump of his shoulders, his low energy demeanor, all the while trying to glean the spirit residing within the body. “I see the aftermath of an emotional wildfire,” I replied. “I see a mental landscape ravaged by flames and still simmering.”

“That's me,” Ned sighed deeply. “I'm burned out. What I can't figure is why. It doesn't make any sense. I’m not a workaholic and my life isn’t all that stressful.”

“Burnout isn’t always about task overload or a frenetic schedule,” I noted.

“Okay, but I do all the right things. I'm something of a fitness nut. I exercise regularly, eat exceptionally well, meditate, take supplements, work reasonable hours, but I still feel fatigued and listless, and I get sick a lot,” he replied.

“Have you consulted your physician?” I asked, and he indicated he had. Physically, all was well inside his skin.

Stress Points

Consequently, we did what some mental health types call a “review of systems” to search for the proverbial smoking gun. Our conversation ranged across family, job, finances, medical history, life goals, and all the other stress points in any individual's psychological architecture.

So, what do you think?” Ned asked when I ran out of questions.

“I think you're funless,” I concluded. “You're fit, squared away, successful, and focused on your goals, but if what you want is to be healthy as a whole person, not just a body, then fun is the missing ingredient.”

Amusement, laughter, and just plain goofing off are absolutely essential components to a healthy existence. Without them, there's no amount of clean living, emotional hygiene, and physical fitness that will make up the resulting deficit.

Emotionally Deficient

Funless folks are emotionally deficient, plain and simple. They lack a fundamental element found in those experiencing positive life balance. We cannot feel good physically or mentally without some merrymaking. Pump iron, scarf antioxidants, systematize your life, mumble mantras or self-actualize into serenity. These still won't compensate for living without merrymaking.

“Time for some goofing off,” I advised Ned.

“I don't remember how,” he replied. “As you pointed out, I’m disciplined to a fault.”

Our culture is adept at teaching hard work, ambition, competition and achievement, but lousy at imparting the fine art of good clean fun, which may explain why so many use alcohol and other psychoactive drugs to kick back and cut loose. Many of us know how to be either deadly serious or totally whacked out, but not much in between.

For too many, “fun” is getting stupid on some psychoactive substance, usually alcohol, throwing away money at the casino, powering down a banana split, or some other dopamine-surging endeavor. We sometimes confuse pleasure with fun. Pleasure is a subjective feeling of gratification, whereas fun is an engaging and participatory experience of enjoyment.

Ned's “therapy” consisted of learning to fool around, cut up, and perceive the comedy in everyday life, and he proved a motivated student. He visited water parks and go-cart tracks, got back into dancing, attended stand-up comedy clubs, played games with his young nephews, stopped keeping score at golf, and found unusual locations for lovemaking. He revisited warm chocolate chip cookies, cartwheels on the lawn, the polar plunge and snowball fights, to mention a few.

The outcome? Ned felt good—not just fit, firm and focused—good. From a psychological standpoint, to feel healthy requires more than living healthy. At least some of the time, you have to live funny.

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