Life is a Playground

Imagine you’ve just sent your kids outside to play.

You head into the kitchen to grind some coffee.

As the water is boiling, you measure your beans out into your favorite grinder.

You pour your water and smile thinking about your kids outside, up and down the slide like always.

Taking your first sip, you head to the back door and look outside to check on your children.

As the first dose of caffeine hits, you are shocked to find both swinging back and forth on the monkey bars—which they’ve never tried before—rather than playing on the slide.

Would you dare open the door and interrupt their joy?

“I sent you outside to slide!” you scream, perhaps throwing in a few curse words to show how deeply troubled you are by their autonomy. “Why are you exploring and adding value to each other’s lives by dabbling in something unsanctioned like the monkey bars?”

***

Of course, this is ridiculous. Your kids are on the playground. And on the playground, almost everything is good.

Sadly, very few adults treat life like a playground.

Not a week goes by now without someone campaigning against someone else’s playground preferences.

It’s not enough to let grownups live their lives. “Comfort creep” means yesterday’s dreams have become today’s oppression, as we constantly lower the bar on the things that drive us to outrage.

And so, we stay locked in our cycles of conflict.

But why can’t we just let people be?

Without an active effort, life numbs us against enjoying the world as a platform for joy and adventure.

Fear, fear, fear! is the politics game, which drives our news, which drives our social media, which drives our thoughts, which drives our behavior, which defines our existence.

Of course, no playground is ever free from conflict.

But who said life should be free of conflict?

Little Ahmed and Riley are always going to reach for the same swing and feel personally attacked by the other’s encroachment on their autonomy.

But rather than promoting the fundamental goodness of the world as a playground to explore, risk, adventure, dream, build, and share, too many of us have succumbed to the belief that the playground is fundamentally dangerous. Totally depraved.

We live as though the world is a platform for conflict, rather than a platform for good.

As kids, we ran outside in search of pirates, princesses, and spaceships in the clouds. We vied over who got to be the hero, enduring great hardship to slay dragons, win gold medals, and care for others.

But as adults, we inch our way outside, convinced that selfish, racist, sexist, violent, abusive, toxic people are lying in wait to harm us. Today, we vie over who gets to be the victim.

Remarkably, we always find what we’re looking for.

If you’ve lost your wonder and taken on a significant amount of fear over the years, you’re not alone. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.

3 Playground Laws to Bring Back Joy

Today, I want to explore three laws of the playground that I’ve applied throughout my work across war zones and fragile states to stay connected to the freedom and joy of constant play without denying the reality of the scrapes, bruises, and arguments that naturally arise.

1. Life’s unfair

2. Share

3. Go higher

Life’s unfair

“Life’s unfair” was one of my dad’s most common responses to me growing up. When I wanted to call in sick to work and go out with my friends. When I wanted to play basketball instead of cleaning the kitchen. When one sibling seemed to get it easier than the other on chores. “Life’s unfair. Get over it.”

Did it upset me when he said it? Absolutely. Did my feelings change the reality of the world? Not one bit.

Life is unfair. We can work to make it less so. But there’s more value in teaching each other to dust off and level up than there is in marching onto the playground every 5 minutes to police and punish each other.

Share

But if life’s unfair and if you want to be a kind person, you will naturally find yourself exploring the various ways you can share what you have with others as an act of adventure, curiosity, and compassion.

Of course, sharing can mean many things, but it cannot mean shame. We cannot be shamed into sharing. We can be shamed into giving. But giving is not sharing.

Sharing is another one of those joys we lose as we age. How much of our giving is prompted by guilt, fear, or a desire to keep up and look good?

When was the last time you really shared something freely—like a bite of chocolate cake? Didn’t it come with a joyous outburst? “You MUST try this!” That is sharing!

And learning to cultivate that is key to living life as a playground for peace.

Go higher

Higher! Faster! is a fundamental rule of the playground. Yes, the merry-go-round makes us dizzy. But eventually, someone is obligated to say “faster”.

Some kid is gonna jump from the slide dragon’s tail. So the next one heads to the top of the monkey bars. Before long, Elijah is hanging off the outside of the playscape and is about to attempt a 10-foot jump over the hot lava.

But why do we lose this?

Are the skinned knees of life objectively as bad as everyone says they are, or are they only relatively uncomfortable because we’ve eliminated the risk and adventure from our lives?

Pressed, not crushed

If you’re attempting anything significant in the world, you will encounter some resistance. Your effort to make more peace, even in your own head, is going to run into pressure from The Way Things Are.

But pressure is not oppression.

You might feel pressed.

But crushed is entirely up to you.

Are you surrounded by voices that are constantly saying “Caution! Careful! The world is out to get you!”?

I’d rather you hear this:

“Higher! Faster! I know you can do it!”

Jeremy Courtney
Cofounder
HUMANITE

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