We can learn something from anyone and anything. There’s something I learned last weekend. It’s about… enjoying simple things.
I had massive water fights at the Songkran Festival in Chiang Mai, Thailand. From the Thai New Year’s Day, 13 April, to 15 April, the whole city of Chiang Mai becomes a battle field for water fights. Locals and visitors equip themselves with water guns and/or buckets, and throw water at each other.
This didn’t sound like the most exciting thing to me, but when I actually got water-attacked by people and threw water at them with my 20 baht bucket, my view changed.
It was a simple, pure joy. Adults, kids, men, women, locals, foreign visitors. Those who chose to stay outside during the Songkran Festival had such fun through this simple act of water fighting.
It’s not just with a few people, but with a whole city of people doing this simple thing with you and having fun. That’s amazing. I saw smiles everywhere. I was smiling the whole time too.
(Curious what it’s like? Here’s a video.)
A day or two after the Songkran Festival ended, I thought about what I learned from this whole experience. What came to my mind was this very, very simple act of having fun. I’m up for having fun. I do have fun. But sometimes I’m not and sometimes I don’t. It’s not necessarily the case that I’m against having fun in such times when I’m not up for having fun or don’t have fun; I tend to be rather neutral. But the thing is – I could choose to have fun and I could choose to find something joyful in each thing I do.
This thought leads me to a question: Why not? Why don’t I choose to have fun as much and as often as possible? I’m not talking about big things here, but tiny, tiny things like walking around your familiar neighborhood. Or breathing. Around you, there are so many things to feel joyful about and to be amused and amazed by.
What were you like as a child? What kind of fun did you have when you were little? Remembering these things would be a good place to start rediscovering how to enjoy simple things in case you’ve forgotten how.
Are you having fun?