Talk Some Nonsense Into Me

For readers who know me only from my novel and other writing, there’s another side of my life: I run an information technology firm that helps multibillion-dollar organizations create better software.

If you’ve ever fought with a website that wouldn’t work or a mobile app that made you want to hurl your phone across the room, the company behind it could possibly use our help.

You could say we are helping serious organizations create serious software for serious business purposes. Yet some of these companies—the better ones, in my mind—encourage their highly paid software developers to play in a sandbox sometimes.

Many organizations offer this sandbox. It’s a safe place where software developers can blow off steam, not take work and code so seriously, and simply play around to get creativity flowing. And it works.

Breakthroughs happen, problems get solved, and better software gets created.

If you have an image of an adult in business attire shoveling sand over her shoulder in a progressive company’s corporate sandbox, I’m going to burst your bubble. Most developers in progressive software organizations these days are in shorts and flip-flops. No stuffy business attire.

And it’s not a true sandbox either, as you probably guessed. This sandbox is a type of development environment that is ’t connected to the live software system. Software engineers can play with the code—including taking risks and making mistakes—in a no-pressure setting that won’t crash the live software product. Through these escapades, wonderful things sometimes happen, even the creation of new revenue-generating products that weren’t on the company’s radar.

In other words, play is good for these software developers and ultimately the companies they work for.

Play is good for us in general. It makes life more fun and exciting, but it also sparks creativity that helps solve problems and drives breakthroughs. It also keeps us healthy.

My hunch is most adults don’t get enough of it.

How many adults do you see walking around who seem genuinely excited about life? I don’t know the answer, but I’m pretty sure I see a lot more kids who look thrilled to be alive than I do grown-ups—at least judging by the weary faces of some adults plodding through their days.

One explanation is obvious: kids aren’t carrying mortgages, careers, aging parents, bills, and all the other adult responsibilities that can make life feel heavy. That’s true.

But not every burden we carry was handed to us. Some we willingly pile on ourselves—the bigger house, the more expensive car, the higher standard of living that quietly demands more of our time and energy to maintain.

Like kids, adults need their playtime, a little nonsense here and there. If you watch the kids around you for any length of time, you'll find so much that adults could mirror.

I wrote a whole essay about how my kids unknowingly mimicked yoga positions well before I "rediscovered" the value of yoga as an adult. They were also naturally doing interval training, something that has recently gained popularity with fitness enthusiasts for its health benefits.

Interval training is short bursts of power interlaced with easier-paced activities. Watch children on a playground sometime. They talk to other kids a bit, walk around, then break into a run for short distances, or expend lots of energy climbing something for thirty seconds, then return to an easier pace until the next burst of power.

Kids have been doing interval training for generations before adults in modern society figured out its health benefits.

How many of you have kids who wake up excited every day, especially the younger ones who have not yet reached the more intense levels of schoolwork?

Mine always woke up excited when younger. The moment I moved my eighteen-month-old son from a crib to a toddler bed, I realized I’d made a huge mistake the next morning at five am when I woke up to see blue eyes glinting at me over the edge of my bed.

Life excited this kid. He refused to miss any by lounging in a bed since he could now escape it. I know what it’s like to wake up that way still, on occasion, especially when I’m getting up early to catch a plane for a fun vacation.

The older I get, the more I realize play is not only important in staying youthful as you age, but it’s also vital. Blowing off steam in fun settings, whatever that looks like as one ages, gives people something to look forward to and keeps them excited about life even when other parts of life are not so exciting or downright bad.

We are built to play. It’s in our DNA.

I like the way Richard Bach says it in his book Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. In it, he writes, “We are game-playing, fun-having creatures, we are the otters of the universe.”

If you’ve ever watched an otter for more than four seconds, you know they don’t play around when it comes to playing around. And if you have watched otters, you have to be one dour, lemon-sucking grinch not to walk away with a little joy in your heart.

When I find myself stressed in life, it’s usually because I’m taking everything way too seriously. I’m putting pressure on myself to be perfect, instead of being human. Most of the time, I’m not following my own advice—a nugget I’ve often given to my boys:

Maturity doesn’t mean you have to act mature all the time. True maturity is knowing the times when you must act mature, and those special times when you don’t have to be.

Admittedly, I’ve messed this advice up both ways: I didn’t lighten up and have fun when I didn’t need to be mature, and I've acted like an irresponsible idiot when I should have had my act together.

The latter has taught me humbling life lessons that I’ve done my best to learn from, but nobody's perfect, right?

This brings me back to pressure. In today’s society, I see too many of us put pressure on ourselves to be perfect instead of having fun while doing the best job we can in the moment.

The pressure to be perfect takes the fun out of life. It causes major stress. When I look back over my life, my best, most rewarding accomplishments—other than trying to raise kids the best I can—have been things I had the most fun with, like learning to fly and starting a business with good friends who, while taking client work seriously, don’t take life or themselves too seriously.

The flip side is that when things don’t go well and I’m dealing with major stress, it’s almost always because I’m taking life way too seriously and trying too hard.

Whatever you’re working on today, find the lightheartedness in it. And if we ever cross paths and I’m looking stressed out, do me a favor:

Talk some nonsense into me.