Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Kate's Fun Factor Five
K8 writes:
dear bernie,
i stumbled across your site and love it, instictively. i hope to visit often. thanks for existing.
i write to share with you my life's rule. i call it Kate's fun factor five. things have to rate a 3 or higher or i won't touch it.
yes, i realize that there isn't much motivation to do the taxes or clean the house when they rate under a three. well, those things should rate rather low without a fun game attached or a reward embedded. so, for housework, i make it into a game. to see if i can get a list of crucial things done before i have an appointment makes things a little more fun, or to add my favorite cd with a bit of volume to feel like a rebel. as for taxes, i might embed certain rewards.......for beginning, i get to order out dinner. for completing various phases, i get to spend time reading a favorite book or extra time working out. how do i get the dusting done?? add a glass of wine! suddenly my mundane chores become everyday enlightenment and merriment.
thanks for your time and again for your work.
Bernie (a.k.a. Major Fun) comments:
Yeah, this "making a game out of it" idea - it's something we need to talk about, a lot. It's probably the first step towards making things more fun, or at least more endurable.
There's a next step I'd like to invite us to meditate on for a while. I think it's deeper, or steeper, or something, because it's not as inviting. But I think it might take us to an even happier place. And that's the step we take to discover the fun that is already there, in the things we don't really want to do. Take dusting, for example. Or washing dishes, even. There's something almost fun about it. I admit, you have to do a lot of looking. But it's there. OK, maybe you have to, so to speak, lower the proverbial fun threshold, but at the heart of it is a kind of peace, a quiet, a time away. And during that time away, there's the reward of things getting done, of watching the dust go away, of seeing the light return, the shine, the sparkle of rightness. And when it's over, and you come back to whatever awaits, it's almost as if you've been someplace else, some deep, quiet, bright place, all your very own. A place where you were having something very much like fun.
dear bernie,
i stumbled across your site and love it, instictively. i hope to visit often. thanks for existing.
i write to share with you my life's rule. i call it Kate's fun factor five. things have to rate a 3 or higher or i won't touch it.
yes, i realize that there isn't much motivation to do the taxes or clean the house when they rate under a three. well, those things should rate rather low without a fun game attached or a reward embedded. so, for housework, i make it into a game. to see if i can get a list of crucial things done before i have an appointment makes things a little more fun, or to add my favorite cd with a bit of volume to feel like a rebel. as for taxes, i might embed certain rewards.......for beginning, i get to order out dinner. for completing various phases, i get to spend time reading a favorite book or extra time working out. how do i get the dusting done?? add a glass of wine! suddenly my mundane chores become everyday enlightenment and merriment.
thanks for your time and again for your work.
Bernie (a.k.a. Major Fun) comments:
Yeah, this "making a game out of it" idea - it's something we need to talk about, a lot. It's probably the first step towards making things more fun, or at least more endurable.
There's a next step I'd like to invite us to meditate on for a while. I think it's deeper, or steeper, or something, because it's not as inviting. But I think it might take us to an even happier place. And that's the step we take to discover the fun that is already there, in the things we don't really want to do. Take dusting, for example. Or washing dishes, even. There's something almost fun about it. I admit, you have to do a lot of looking. But it's there. OK, maybe you have to, so to speak, lower the proverbial fun threshold, but at the heart of it is a kind of peace, a quiet, a time away. And during that time away, there's the reward of things getting done, of watching the dust go away, of seeing the light return, the shine, the sparkle of rightness. And when it's over, and you come back to whatever awaits, it's almost as if you've been someplace else, some deep, quiet, bright place, all your very own. A place where you were having something very much like fun.
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