Q: I essentially work for the pay cheque. I'm a bit traditional and never associate work with fun necessarily. For me, work and play are opposite words. Do you think my views are outdated?
A: I strongly disagree with work and play being opposite words. We spend around three-fifths of our lives working. They are the best years of our lives—most of our waking hours. Is it fair that we should spend such a large chunk of our lives doing something that is the opposite of play? Life is far too short to come into work for the pay cheque. There is something very wrong with the picture of hating what you do, dreaming of weekends and wishing your life away towards retirement.
In fact, the opposite of work isn't play—it's idleness. That's why many men who work all their lives die soon after retirement. Studies have shown that people who do not find stimulating activities following retirement face higher risk of dying or developing serious illness within a year or two of finishing work.
And, most importantly, there's a direct correlation between how much you enjoy something and how well you do it. If you hate doing something it's a sure-fire guarantee that you won't do a good job of it. It's a complete myth that business is not meant to be fun and that good business is serious. Too much sobriety at work switches people off—and in fact breeds corporate automatons.
Bringing fun into the workplace engages and stimulates people. That element of play and originality releases the much-needed right-brain creativity.
Daniel H. Pink's best-selling book, A Whole New Mind, covers this subject in great detail. In Pink's words: "Fun is not a form of entertainment, it's an integral part of being good at what you do at work."
Sahar Hashemi is the author of Switched On
