Play Your Way Forward — Transform Challenges into Opportunity Using the Play Instinct
Do you approach challenges with an apprehensive, defensive edginess?
This is the general approach, but our instincts suggest a better way.
Pursuing any aim comes with challenge — no uncertainty there — but the way in which we approach these tests reveals how well our mindsets & fundamental philosophies are set up to include our natural design.
An efficient philosophy is like an operating system
- zero bugs
- well organised code
- a beautiful interface.
The system can operate quickly & effectively for whatever its user is intending — including converting complex, challenging files into beneficial opportunities.
Playing your way forward is a philosophy that fits perfectly into our design.
You can apply this philosophy in the tiny, subtle, very quiet and private moments in your life that only you are aware of.
It is a way of thinking that you can use in circumstances, experiences and situations that will leave people wondering — “there’s something about that person…”
Most importantly, during life’s most testing trials, it will carry you forward.
So, you’ve reached a block. You’ve hit a rut. You’re stuck in the mud. You’ve been tagged.
Perhaps a creative block — no more inspiration.
Maybe you’ve encountered a sticky issue in your relationship, career or have hit an emotional crisis.
Or, if you’re among my horsey readers, a behavioural problem has landed you in the dirt.
How ever will you get through, over, around or out?
How are you going to figure it out?
In the thick of it, a challenge can seem like an all encompassing, energy draining, neverending story.
It’s a bad thing in your life. A blemish that needs removing. A stinky shoe that needs throwing out. You may even just want to hit the restart button.
For some of us, we can have an underlying sense that if we’ve allowed a problem into our lives, we’ve not done our jobs right.
When we’re looking to rid ourselves of them, our general approach is to apply our best problem solving attitudes:
Serious and stern application of intellect and effort.
“If I just think about this problem hard enough, I will fix it.”
There are so many TV series that play on this model. Ozark, Game of Thrones, Sons of Anarchy. Just problem after problem and the Hero has a superhuman ability to fix them all.
I didn’t want to live my life in problem solving mode — so I found another option
Have you ever met someone who just seems to breeze through life? Nothing is a problem. Nothing really troubles them. They have a positive attitude and seem to always have a wider perspective.
These people see life as a game and they see challenges as opportunities to play harder — let’s find out how to play.
Life in Hard Mode
There are some extremely heavy loads being carried out there — I’m in no way denying that. Financial struggle, health crises, heartbreak, betrayal, death & loss to name a few.
Perhaps these are not realms in which you could imagine there being any room for play. At least, not if you see play as frivolous, irresponsible, immature behaviour.
To play your way forward does not remove heavy, hard things from life.
They definitely still exist and pretending they don’t by subscribing to a saccharine attitude is definitely not what I’m advocating for.
Choosing to play your way through a challenge is shifting into an easier mode of play by changing your perspective on what a challenge really is.
This removes unnecessary emotional and psychological burden.
A Perspective Shift on Challenge
Challenge is a limitation — a restriction — a boundary — a constraint — a rule
“Limited means beget new forms, invite creation, make the style. Progress in art does not lie in extending its limits, but in knowing them better.”
— Cahier de Georges Braque
When we are going along in life fairly content and an obstacle comes along to disrupt us — we feel that our freedom has been restricted. Pressure has been added. We can no longer move as freely.
Financial hardship, for example — a lack of income to cover the necessary outgoings — is certainly a restriction on your life. It removes options. You cannot just do what you want anymore. It’s a very certain thing. The rules have been laid down.
Your choice in the face of this challenge:
- Fight those boundaries, stamp your feet and cry “it’s not fair!”
- Play within the new parameters that have been set.
Your secret third choice is just removing the rules altogether.
Because who needs rules anyway?
Turns out, we owe rules a great debt of gratitude.
Rules Are Necessary To Play the Game
Rules don’t take away the fun — they create the possibility for it.
“Without the basic rules or disciplines, there is no motivation, test of skill or ultimate reward — in short, no game.”
– Paul Rand, Design and the Play Instinct
Life has countless games and all of them have their distinct rules and limitations. Some are hard rules, like physics and death and some are soft rules, like relationships or career. We get to choose a lot of the rules we play by, but there are some that are set for us.
Relationships have their set of rules, whether they are spoken aloud or not. Arguments indicate a perceived violation.
- “We are meant to play it this way!”
- “I didn’t agree to that!”
- “You broke the rules, I’m hurt!”
We may love the idea of freedom, but our psyches — and our bodies — need boundaries to form our perception. Otherwise the world is a complete chaotic mess of overwhelming potential.
If there were no boundaries, there would be no homes to take comfort in, no fences to keep horses in (!!), no artistic style or differentiation from one thing to another.
Limitations encourage playful and creative solutions
When we are faced with a set of limitations, it’s inside those limits where our arena for play is.
“Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn.”
— M. Scott Peck
A round pen is a limitation
It’s a boundary that encourages an internal bend in a horse but similar to chess, there are countless options in that circle. We could aim for connection and find success or failure but we continue to play round 1, round 2, round 3 …
A blank piece of paper is a limitation
You have the Cosmos to explore on that page. As you define your subject, you start to play a good game. If you define it too much, then you restrict the fun part. It becomes just a cold dictionary entry as opposed to a melodic poem.
Rules for the sake of rules isn’t fun
Rules are there for the purpose of playing. If we forget that part (as some societies have done historically and presently) we lose sight of the whole point of the game.
Life is meant to be fun.
The ultimate boundaries or rules at either end of life are that we are born and we will die.
Between those two outer limits of existence — is the opportunity to play.
The Human Instinct to Play
Creativity is a realm that opens itself to us via playfulness.
“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the object it loves.”
– Carl Jung
Playfulness is somewhat out of our hands — we aren’t in control of what is comical, fun or exciting. That’s a secret for a different part of us to let us in on. When someone says something funny — we watch ourselves react to it. We don’t explain to ourselves why it’s funny or else it’s not funny.
We express a very deep part of ourselves when we play. It’s how we form authentic connections with others to test whether they are true friends. It’s how we know we are in our element. It is a signal that our souls are alive and well within us. Following the play instinct leads us to good places and away from bad places.
When we play, our bodies take the lead. They know a lot more than our brains about play.
It’s emotional expression.
Being led by the play instinct means opening your heart and it’s not always tears of laughter that come forth.
Kids Could Teach us a Thing or Two
Kids are the masters of play.
They show us how instinctive it is.
They show us how prevalent the opportunity for it is.
“Children are happy because they don’t have a file in their minds called “All the Things That Could Go Wrong.”
― Marianne Williamson
A kid can make fun from anything. A rock, the clouds, a sneeze, your hair. Play is limitless to a child and as they grow into adults, their instinct for play doesn’t disappear — they just concentrate that instinct into specific realms.
Play is Another Pronunciation of Bliss
As I have written about before, Bliss is a concept that scholar and mythologist, Joseph Campbell spoke about many times in his lectures.
Bliss is our guidance system for our choices, actions and pursuits.
In his description of the Hero’s Journey, after we receive our Call to Adventure — the idea or event that sparks us to travel inward towards transformation — we ride on the edge of known and unknown.
When logic, reasoning & example are no longer sufficient to instruct us, it is the sensation or intuition of Bliss — our playful spirit — that guides our steps.
“Always remember to judge everything by your inner feeling of bliss.”
― Osho
The next time you are faced with a set of limitations, try to see them as an opportunity for play.
While you are stuck between a rock and a hard place, it is wiggling after all, that gets you out.
And wiggling is funny.