A world without play is like eating a cold cheese pizza. Sad right? You’d miss the warm feeling that you’d normally feel when savoring a hot pizza. You’d miss all the fun toppings and additions that blend together just right. With age, play becomes something unfamiliar. Something cold that doesn’t really feel like home. Something that you used to do all the time but now feel guilty doing. Everyone has a chaotic life, whether it’s after school sports practice, studying for your next exam, or even working a 9-5, nobody has the chance to play anymore. 

As we age, responsibilities are made and deadlines are created, eliminating the free time we used to have as kids. Most parents want their children to be overachievers, hence why so many high schoolers are constantly stressed with the abundant work and extracurricular activities they may or may not have been forced into. Most people think about the end-goal, and how only hard work and dedication will get you there, but nobody stops to think about the creativity and play that is needed to get there. Teenagers are constantly getting burned out because they simply aren’t having fun with what they are doing. How do we lessen stress and increase happiness in our future generations? It’s simple, just incorporate “play” more.

Play used to be unfamiliar to me. It’s kind of funny, but I related that missing feeling to eating a cold cheese pizza. Play was so warm and familiar, but I used to barely get the chance to play because I felt guilty doing it. There are so many other things I could be doing besides sitting around and having fun. But I’ve realized that I don’t have to be guilty for playing. Instead, I’ve taken something that I could “play” around in, which is music. I’ve incorporated fun and play into my everyday school life by joining extracurricular activities that I genuinely enjoy. My parents wanted me to join other “beneficial” activities that would make me look more “appealing” to the college board. They wanted me to push harder in my academics, but what they didn’t know was that I already enrolled in the school’s choir program. All my older cousins and family have already done music extracurriculars, and my parents wanted me to be different and try a different path in high school. With choir, every day at school is a lot less painful.

Incorporating work and play into one reminds me of the incredibly talented, Isamu Noguchi. His ideas were different, he didn’t build regular homes and buildings, but he focused mainly on fun architecture, playgrounds, and furniture. He believed that play and work were not mutually exclusive but rather complementary aspects of creativity and human experience. He made sure all of the spaces that he built were encouraging people to use their imagination. Noguchi uses “work” to build these structures and “play” to enhance them with creativity. His legacy reminds people to always incorporate play into their lives.