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Happy New Year!  In the beginning of 2024, you may have new plans to achieve in study or work.  Looking back 2023, are we finding ourselves busy with study or work and not having enough fun and play?  2023 is a special year to many people as this was the first year of re-opening after the pandemic in Hong Kong.  Given the shutting down of the city for three years before 2023, many people worked very hard to achieve things they had planned few years back.  One of my clients told me that she spent the whole 2023 in establishing a new team in her department.  For many months, she worked seven days a week.  She only travelled for business purposes and had no leisure activities in her daily life.  In fact, she felt guilty for even going to watch a movie when she could spare the time.  After working hours, she usually replied her emails at home or conducted online meetings with overseas staff.  When I talked about her childhood experience in relation to her guilt on playing and having fun, she told me that her parents rarely allowed her to play throughout her childhood.  Whenever she had spare time, her parents would make her to do academic exercises to improve her knowledges and language proficiency.

In a metropolitan city like Hong Kong, competition in study and work is keen and people are striving for achievement all the time.  It is common for students who are going to take public exams to spend the whole Christmas and New Year holiday for study.  In fact, we need to know that play and have fun are our important basic needs for the benefits of our physical and mental health.  For children, play can enhance their creativity, curiosity, and connections with others.  As adults, we also need to play to enrich our lives.  We may think that we do not need to play the toys or engage in games that we enjoyed in our childhood anymore as adults.  However, we still need to play and have fun in a more mature way.  For example, we may enjoy photography while we are travelling or treasure partying with close friends in holidays.  It is important to know that those ignored the importance of play in their adulthood are more prone to depressive mood and burnout.  How can we take care of our happy inner child who enjoys play and have fun?

Before enjoying ourselves with play as adults, we need to be aware of our inner critics when we are longing for having fun.  These inner critics may sound like our parents in the past in our childhood.  For instance, we may say to ourselves, “If I go to watch this movie, I am lazy and avoiding the responsibility of work”.  With this awareness, we may be able to acknowledge our self-criticism without believing in it.  As a result, we can step back and perceive the situation objectively.  We may then say to ourselves, “I worked hard for six days this week for work already, having fun by watching this movie is good for my mental health.”  After conquering our inner critics, we can explore different hobbies or activities so that we have more choices when we have leisure time.  We need to embrace the fact that as a new learner of a hobby, such as golf or dancing, we will face difficulties and make mistakes.  It is important for us to enjoy the process while we are engaging in these activities without focusing too much on the outcome.  We need to know that the objective of our engagement is for fun and to cultivate enjoyment.  We are not engaging in competition with our peers.

Furthermore, to take care of our happy inner child, we need to meet the emotional needs of ourselves.  We need to set boundaries with those people who tended to drain us when we are being with them.  For example, some of our friends may only talk about their issues during the gatherings without listening to our problems on reciprocity.  In these cases, we need to reduce gatherings with these friends.  We need to choose our supportive network wisely, so that we could have our emotional needs met. In 2024, besides planning for our ambitious study or work goals, let’s take care of our happy inner child and cultivate a healthy and enjoyable life.