play time

I went on a conference last week called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. On the second day as we walked in there were a few boxes full of chess pieces with a sign asking everyone to take one.

By the time I got to the box there were only pawns (mostly pawns, actually), a few knights and this queen left. I chose the queen in the above photo. As I chose my piece I wondered what kind of workshop we would have about the chess piece. I wondered if this would be some kind of personality thing. I chose, arguably the most powerful piece on the board. I found it sort of interesting that there were so many pawns left on the board. The pawn. A piece that can only move one square straight ahead at a time. One of the only benefits to the pawn is that if it reaches the other side of the board it can be traded in for a more powerful piece.

Here we were at a  conference full of church and ministry leaders and most of the powerful pieces had been taken.

A couple of hours into the day we were asked to bring out our chess piece. Turns out that I was way overthinking the object here. This was nothing about personality or leadership style. What it was, was a reminder for us to play more.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I can so easily fall into the trap of "work, work, work and always be busy". I actually enjoy being busy, to be honest. So much so that I can tend to forget to do fun things too.

In the past week I've been making more of an effort to enjoy things more. It has been a busy week but I keep reminding myself to find joy in the small things. I play a game on the iPad. I watched 24. I caught up with old friends. Spent a few hours sitting on a bench next to a river. I made a list of things to do before turning 30 in August. Most of the things on that list are fun. Go to the beach. Read two new books for fun. Go cliff jumping, etc.

I'm not sure why this deserved an entire blog. Yet I wonder how many others there are like me that can so easily forget to play. Maybe I'm writing this more for myself. To remind myself even more to take pleasure every day.