Water cooler chats do in fact work
What an odd title to start learning about types of fun. Allow me to explain. We have just finished our daily developer stand-up and as the morning requires of any developer, I head to the coffee machine. I grab my generic white cup and double tap the flat white option. The 60ml default coffee amount won’t cut it. I modify it to 75ml and lower the milk output from 14 seconds down to 10. As my coffee pours I ask Adrian about his weekend. He said it was good, but busy. He had a lot of type II fun. What an interesting statement. He asks if I know about the different types and you can guess the answer. Here am I learning and writing about types of fun from a water cooler (right next to the coffee machine) chat. Amazon was right all along! You do in fact engage more in person with a water cooler conversation.
Fun (/fʌn/)
Fun is subjective, but it can be formally defined as a few complex words. These being “enjoyment, amusement, or light-hearted pleasure”1. I perceive it a positive emotional response to some experience or activity. As mentioned earlier, it’s subjective. Meaning that I might find quad-biking fun whereas another person would despise it. Each has their own scale and ideas of fun. This isn’t something to debate over, but to celebrate. However, through the different kinds of fun we can still categorize them into various types.
Type I
This type is what most people understand as fun. This is instantaneous positive responses to something. It is fun the whole time. There is no aspect of the moment that isn’t positive. This can be done countless times and remain awesome each time! A few examples for me would be:
- Quad-biking
- Jet ski ride
- Sex (within marriage) with my amazing wife!
- Watching a good comedy movie
- Date nights
Type II
Now we get into something a little more complex. Type II fun is not technically fun yet… What I mean by this is that it is miserable while it’s happening. However, the fun aspect comes from retrospection. The perfect example (in my humble opinion) is exercise! It starts off with amazing intentions, but once you get into it and start pushing yourself it kind of sucks. And sucks for a long time. Think muscle aches on a run, sore muscles or sore abs, lack of breath and not being able to utter a single word. However, once you finish or take a peek at your pumped body you feel amazing. All the endorphins kick in! This is type II fun.
This is the type of fun we should embrace all the more in our lives. We easily get stuck at the struggle, not believing the outcome can bring the joy we want. I want to make it a personal goal to focus 80% of my effort on Type II fun throughout the year.
Type III
Type III fun is simply not fun at all. It is never fun. Not in retrospect, not in action, never. These activities makes you question how you could come up with such a (excuse the french) idiotic idea. There is no pleasure before, during or after. An example of this would be getting drunk. Now many might disagree and stop reading here, but I urge you to think through it. The act of getting drunk requires someone to spend money, lose control of their body, do and say and think stupid things and lastly, the hangover. In retrospect this wasn’t a pleasant experience. I believe there are things around the environment that might be fun, but solely the act of getting drunk is a Type III fun in my book.
How to have fun
A series of quirky, but necessary quotes to just have fun!
Embrace the moment!
Live the day like it’s your last.
Be present.
Enjoy the small things.
Take a mental picture.
Smile and enjoy the moment.
Simple, easy, non-difficult. This is how we should have fun. Ask yourself if the current fun is a type I, II or III type and embrace which ever it is!