The airport is chaos. Strains snake past the designated boundaries and out the doorways as frazzled vacationers tug their baggage and scowl at their telephones, their grimaced faces much more dramatic within the harsh lighting.
I stand within the safety queue, sensing the stress emanating from everybody round me like swarms of buzzing flies. A person behind me huffs with dramatic indignation, a pair forward bickers in hissed whispers “we must always have left earlier!”, and somebody’s curler bag retains thwacking my heels.
My fists clench as irritation winds me tighter. The safety checkpoint appears miles away and my flight is in an hour. I really feel myself being sucked into the collective vortex of distress.
Then, as we make our first zig within the queue, I catch my accomplice’s eye and make a split-second choice. I increase my hand for a excessive 5.
“Sure!” I exclaim with exaggerated enthusiasm. “One flip nearer!”
My accomplice appears momentarily confused, then a half grin lights up his face as he slaps my raised palm. Just a few individuals close by look over, some with bemused smiles.
After we attain the subsequent flip, we have been prepared. “Flip quantity TWO!” We announce collectively, high-fiving with gusto. A girl behind us lets out a chuckle that appears to shock even herself.
By the third flip, a household with a toddler holds up their palms for prime fives earlier than we will even supply ours. “We’re on a roll now!” the dad says, grinning.
With every zigzag, our celebration grows a bit as others be a part of our absurd celebration of incremental progress. Quickly, a pocket of real laughter has shaped in our part of the road, rippling outward like a skipped rock as others catch on to our sport.
Pressured vs. playful
In that second of journey chaos, we made a selection: as an alternative of going through the irritating state of affairs with tense resentment (what I now name “The Pressured Method”) we resolve to rework it by way of levity and connection (“The Playful Method”).
This easy shift doesn’t change our state of affairs. We’re nonetheless in the identical painfully sluggish airport safety queue. We’re nonetheless susceptible to lacking our flight. But it surely adjustments what the state of affairs looks like—from stress to humor, from isolation to neighborhood, storm cloud to solar break.
This selection between The Pressured Method and The Playful Method seems continuously in our lives: throughout know-how crashes, tough conversations, energy struggles, or canceled plans. When challenges come up, we will clench our jaws and white-knuckle our approach by way of—or we will deliver creativeness, inquiry, and openness to the state of affairs. This selection isn’t nearly boosting enjoyable (thought that’s a welcome bonus), it’s about accessing new options, deeper camaraderie, and a richer expertise of on a regular basis life.
Playfulness isn’t one measurement suits all. Whereas our airport second concerned a social sport, you would possibly categorical your playful aspect by discovering magnificence within the terminal structure, creating backstories for fellow vacationers, or scoring the scene with a movie soundtrack—turning an earthly wait into the opening of your private heist film or Broadway musical.
The Pressured Method tightens our imaginative and prescient like horse blinders, whereas The Playful Method opens our peripheral sight to potentialities we’d in any other case miss solely.
A transformative mindset
After I speak about playfulness in maturity, I’m usually met with puzzled appears. “You imply sports activities?” individuals ask. Or “Board video games with buddies?”. “Oh, like, work onerous/play onerous… partying?”
However playfulness runs deeper than scheduled recreation (although that’s necessary). It’s not a leisure exercise reserved for weekends or holidays—it’s a mindset that transforms how we expertise all the pieces.
Playfulness is:
— Discovering humor and lightness even in tense moments
— Navigating conditions with real questions as an alternative of assumptions
— Staying open to potentialities reasonably than fixating on one “proper” approach
— Experimenting reasonably than in search of perfection
— Bringing an ethos of journey to difficulties
— Reimagining the mundane by way of reframes and video games
— Being prepared to collaborate reasonably than management
After we transfer by way of the world playfully, we stay pliable, able to adapt, change, and work with no matter comes our approach: to navigate obstacles nimbly and alchemize even probably the most mundane duties into micro adventures.
Playfulness is usually dismissed as frivolous — an enthralling however dispensable high quality greatest left in childhood alongside stuffies and imaginary buddies.
However watch any little one rework a cardboard field right into a spaceship or a pile of sticks right into a fairy home and — past the lovable façade — you might be witnessing them exercising a few of humanity’s most dear capacities: creativeness, adaptation, and ingenuity.
The excellent news? Playfulness is a part of us all — it’s commonplace situation for the human species. Even for those who’ve left it within the drawer gathering mud, you’ll be able to choose up your playfulness once more and relearn to make use of it.
I haven’t all the time been capable of finding the high-five moments in life’s safety traces. There was a time after I was deeply misplaced in what I now acknowledge as “The Pressured Method.”
Past burnout
Throughout a very intense interval constructing my first firm, I discovered myself alone late one evening, pen in hand, making a listing titled “Methods I’m Failing RN.” It contained eleven meticulously detailed gadgets—work tasks falling behind, management shortcomings, fertility struggles, uncared for friendships and household relationships—each a knife twist of self-criticism. On the backside, virtually as an afterthought, I’d written: “Stressing myself out with my stress and incapability to emotionally regulate.”
I used to be past burnout — overworked and under-played. Night time after evening, I’d come dwelling, collapse on my condo ground, and sob till I used to be empty, unable to see any of the success round me. The brilliantly coloured, inventive world I’d constructed felt prefer it was occurring to another person solely. The burden of my perfectionism had change into so crushing that I couldn’t think about a approach ahead.
What moved me by way of this era wasn’t working tougher or being extra disciplined. It was remembering The Playful Lifestyle I’d realized as a toddler, sitting round our kitchen desk in Maine with my household, brainstorming wild concepts over dinner.
Our kitchen was the beating coronary heart of my childhood dwelling, with its cheerful painted tiles, shiny inexperienced counter tops, and wall jam-packed with household photographs. After my brother and I helped our dad and mom serve dinner, the enjoyable started. My phrases would tumble out in pleasure: “Hey, what if we began a children’ karaoke membership?” My dad and mom would trade a conspiratorial look. “Now there’s an thought!” Mother would reply, leaning ahead. “What would that appear like? The place would we host it?”
Between bites of penne, my brother would chime in: “We might have themed nights — Disney songs one week, pop hits the subsequent!” My dad would smile, his laughter-creased eyes twinkling. “I find it irresistible! Now what would we title it?” Earlier than anybody might reply, his fork was within the air, face lit up with enthusiasm. “Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! I do know! Kiddieoke!”
These kitchen desk periods have been boisterously loud, as we constructed upon one another’s concepts. No thought was too outrageous to discover. We have been elementary schoolers doing enterprise brainstorms—and our dad and mom took us critically and egged us on.
Ultimately, we’d should clear the desk, do our homework, and return to our each day tasks. However in these moments, I realized that any endeavor could possibly be dealt with with an inquisitive perspective and a spirit of journey.
I used to be lucky to have dad and mom who confirmed me that marvel and whimsy could possibly be woven into all points of life. My mother—a social employee, artist, gardener—and my dad—an entrepreneur, engineer, inventor—modeled what it appears like for adults to be playful whereas concurrently constructing companies, coping with sickness and loss, and nurturing households and communities.
My voyage of questioning took a brand new flip at age 15 when I discovered my coronary heart fluttering like butterfly wings every time I used to be round my greatest lady good friend and realized I wasn’t simply attracted to at least one gender. Rising up Catholic, I realized that boundaries have been fastened—traces drawn between proper and unsuitable, holy and profane, authorised and forbidden types of love. However my bisexual coronary heart didn’t match into onerous pews or inflexible bins, it spilled out like vivid stained glass gentle. Fortunately my mother advised me that some guidelines have been for bending so I turned to playfulness, curiously exploring and embracing the expansiveness of being queer, reasonably than fearing it.
Carving out play area
This present of exploration carried me to New York Metropolis, the place I co-founded and constructed Refinery29 from a small fashion web site into one of the vital influential digital media manufacturers for girls, reaching tens of millions with its distinctive mixture of style, tradition, and boundary-pushing storytelling.
Even in boardrooms, I carved out areas for play—like my apricot-colored workplace dubbed “The Peach Pit” with its spherical desk that grew to become our magic circle for brainstorms. All of the gamers across the desk now have been adults, so I needed to take some further measures to get the concepts flowing together with doing bodily shake breaks and having a lovingly bedazzled Taboo! sport buzzer readily available for when anybody obtained into excessively “critical mode.”
Our playful strategy led us to create modern experiences like 29Rooms—a funhouse of tradition that reimagined vacant warehouses into kaleidoscopic, artist-made wonderlands the place 100,000 adults got here by way of to frolic and fall down creativeness rabbit holes in cities throughout the US.
A brand new chapter
In 2021, I discovered myself prepared to start a brand new chapter. However leaving the corporate I’d constructed over fifteen years was like transferring out of a house you’ve cherished — even whenever you’re able to go, there’s nonetheless a bittersweet ache. Add to that the wild journey of latest motherhood and a worldwide pandemic, and I used to be navigating a number of id shifts without delay. Daunting questions loomed: Who was I past the position I used to be most identified for? What sort of dad or mum would I change into? What did I need to create subsequent?
As I confronted these large transitions, my spirit whispered a solution: experiment! As a substitute of dashing to determine all of it out, I turned my life right into a play laboratory. I led cathartic dance events on Zoom, created public artwork experiences connecting strangers in parks, took courses in improv and storytelling, and mentioned “sure” to just about any foray that sparked curiosity. I dove deep into researching the ability of play for our well being and happiness, and piles of books stacked up on my desk.
My calendar stuffed up with what I lovingly known as “play dates with chance,” and one thing magical occurred: as I led hundreds of individuals in unlocking their vibrant spirits, I found my subsequent chapter — creating areas for frolicsome, inventive apply and shared pleasure.
Playfulness is my energy software and my life preserver throughout all points of my life from parenting to self care to profession. It’s how I’ve provide you with modern options at work, constructed significant relationships, discovered objective throughout transitions, and made recollections in mundane moments. My relationship with playfulness isn’t nearly pleasure—it’s been important drugs for navigating life with melancholy, anxiousness, and ADHD.
I’ve developed my very own strategies and seen the ability of this strategy rework not simply my very own life, however numerous others I’ve labored with. And now, I’m on a mission to unlock that magic for you too—that can assist you dive into that giddy river that flows after we strategy life with playfulness.
Tailored excerpt from The Playful Way, by Piera Gelardi, and reprinted with permission from HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2026.
