Worked a lot as a child and barely played. Missed out on lots of personality development. I have more free time now and I want to play, but I don’t totally understand how.
I was told when I have something fun to do, learn to fail the marshmallow test and just immediately eat the marshmallow. I feel paralyzed. I’m used to playing only if I’m invited by someone else to play, and I want to play more when I’m alone.
So far I sometimes draw and read a fun book. Both usually make me anxious, but they bring me feelings of accomplishment.
I’ve gone through similar experiences, and at least for me its been a mix of learning how to turn off my internal inhibitions towards positive spontaneous actions my unconscious self wants to do. This could be things like wriggling or dancing while listening to music I feel while alone. Going off on random nature walks and indulging my thirst to explore randomly. Roll around in the grass because I can. Hit blocks of ice with a hammer because why not. Swagger around like you’re in a cowboy movie and try to win a quick-draw against yourself in the mirror. Dip dried squid in chunky peanut butter because you wonder if the two flavors will mix or not. And so on and so forth.
Of course I’ve gone through almost a decade of trying to improve my mindset from being a nihilistic doomer that couldn’t enjoy anything except atrocious shock jockey edgy “humor” to someone that gets blown away by the beauty of the rising sun on a daily bases and giggles like a child having a fit at terrible dad jokes like “don’t forget to eat your vegetables, peas!” Or talking about China’s monorail transit systems and saying “I bet this subject would make a great One-liner!” It also helps that my material conditions have changed to a more positive environment and I’m around generally more fun and positive people I can learn from and joke with.
Just remember you can’t learn it over night, but with steady commitment of trying a bit at a time will help you develop yourself as a person in the direction you may desire.
Happy to hear about your success in brightness. All your spontaneity ideas sound nice. I do half of the first paragraph so I consider that a head start to doing all that. I really like those dad jokes. I’ve been having trouble making friends, but I have one who does jokes like that all day, and it’s really helpful for my uprightness.
I gotta take a hammer to a block of ice sometime.
I’ll be honest, it’s mainly work friends that I see every day. And I know that’s hit or miss gor everyone, situational and all that. Also the block of ice is on my roof so for me its a “do it or risk your roof caving in” deal, but I make it more interesting by indulging in my whims of seeing what random stuff in my place helps break ice. Like I’ve gotten a smaller rail spike I found years back and used it as a “chisel” that I beat I to the ice to break chunks off like I’m making an ice sculpture, or taking an old machete I got and and slashing at some ice like a martial artist, among other dumb shit I’ve used to break ice.
But anyways, I believe in you in that you’ll get to where you’re aiming for, so don’t beat yourself up too much!