The Importance of Play and Joy

If I were to choose to live my life over again,

I wouldn't live it in this way.

Do you know Winnie the Pooh?

Yeah. Okay. Not personally. No, no.

The book.

The end of that book would bring tears to my eyes for years.

Christopher Robin has to go to school,

and he's telling his friends, the toy animals,

that he won't be able to play with them so much anymore.

And what I wasn't aware of when I went to medical school

and when I was a physician

is how driven I was to justify my existence in the world.

I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

When you're driven to work too hard,

you actually ignore what matters.

And what matters is what you were telling me last night about

how every summer you take a bunch of weeks away from your podcast

and you just spend time enjoying your kids and your wife and your family.

I didn't do that.

I always felt I had to keep working.

And the book ends with the statement,

and whatever they do or wherever they go in the enchanted forest,

the little boy and his bear will always be playing together.

And that phase would bring tears to my eyes for years.

People sacrifice their playfulness,

their joyfulness, being driven by unconscious needs to validate your existence.

And where does that come from?

Again, that comes from childhood trauma.

Play is so important,

and joy is so important.

In that sense,

we can always keep playing in the enchanted forest,

and that's just essential, I think.