Everyone's out to play.
I’ve spent this month of August in Paris, and something I felt very deeply this time is the European vacance culture. Many businesses (including the ones I really needed to go to) completely close up for the month of August simply because… The shopkeepers are on vacation.
Because everybody else is in the neighborhood is on vacation, there isn’t much one can do within the neighborhood and this encourages all the remaining people to take vacations of themselves. The Korean/American capitalist mind cannot help but wonder… Who pays the rent then?
Well, regardless of who pays the rent, everyone is out enjoying play. Which made me wonder for this month’s episode of our magazine, what is play? I’ve invited my friends Gunila Pedersen and Michele Arocena to contribute their ideas about play, and I hope this episode can broaden your horizons when it comes to enjoying your life with play.
Billy's Two Cents
Play Versus
What is play when opposed with these ideas?
Work
I occasionally run month-long programs where I’m available for people for the entire month. As the month progresses this is the question I get the most often: How do I have all this time to coach people and not get tired? The answer is, coaching people isn’t work for me.
Coaching people doesn’t drain energy for me, it actually invigorates me and gives me energy. I can’t say the same thing about software engineering all the time. Sometimes I have a project or a portion of a project I get invested in and I enjoy working on it, but I can’t write code as much as I coach people.
So technically coaching is work for me because it is an activity I do for economic gain. But in another sense it is play for me. How can that be? How can one get into this mindset of enjoying work so much that it becomes play?
The biggest factor in it is the VOLUNTARY aspect. I don’t HAVE to coach anyone, if I just wanted to get by with my life all I have to do is just get another engineering job and work casually. I coach because I WANT to, and connecting to this want inside of me is what unlocks all the magic of play.
Even if it’s a video game, if I’m forced to play it it won’t really be playing. Korea has a big professional gaming scene and professional players of Starcraft would at times go into a big performance slump and it would turn out that the reason is the players started playing other games because they burnt out of Starcraft.
What do you voluntarily do even when nobody asks you to do it, or even when nobody would ask you to do it (I wanted to make sure it’s not something like chores, haha)?
Bore
Play is not boring. That’s why we can go at it for hours, that’s why we reach for play when we’re bored. Play is actually like the solution for boredom. So if you’re looking to invite more play into your life, there needs to be some factors inside of your activity that countersacts bore.
Unfortunately this is where play bleeds into the territory of distraction or entrancing. Play is meant to reinvigorate you and give you your brainpower BACK, instead of siphoning it more. But modern play that’s most accessible to all tends to be draining, triggering, and infinitely repeating.
Another potential negative of play is that it tends to leave you feeling empty. Because play is entertaining it makes you enter into an altered state of mind, and of course at the end of it when you regulate you regulate towards the direction of down. This is why it can be beneficial to incorporate a factor of utility into your play.
In that spirit I recommend European board games. Why? You get to learn something through the play because many European board games are based on historical events or real-life geography. Carcassonne, Ticket To Ride, Santorini are great options I personally enjoy with my wife. Because it’s not played on a screen it is slow enough for you to relax and play while unwinding.
Summer may be almost gone and school may be starting. You may think it’s the end of play but this is precisely the time to incorporate more play into your life. Bring intention and entertainment, learn something in the process as a bonus!
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📍Playing At Work
“If you want people to take you seriously, you’ve got to look professional”
Veterinary coach Gunila Pedersen shares how to work more playfully.
I’ve been told this this in two different instances:
Once from my practice manager at the veterinary hospital I worked at, because I wore a SpongeBob Squarepants scrub top instead of the navy colored one everyone else wore.
Another time I heard it from a fellow coach, as I started my path as a life coach for veterinary surgeons. All my writing was in comic sans, and everything I published was always accompanied by funny cat memes and gifs.
I really wanted to be taken seriously, because I consider my work both as an ER vet and a life coach really important!
So I took their words to heart, and changed to a more professional look. No more funny cats, and all my writing was changed to more professional fonts. I also took care to look tidy and professional on any videos I made, with a curated background. Surely now people could see I was professional and would take me seriously!!
The problem was, that by doing that I took all the play out of my work.
As a coach and a content creator, trying to appear serious and professional all the time made me not want to do any work! It sucked all the energy and fun out of me, because I was always trying to be someone I’m not.
One of my strengths both as a vet and as a life coach is my crazy sense of humor. I can find the funny in most situations, and when I point it out to people, they are liberated from taking everything so seriously, and gain another perspective.
Today I was coaching a veterinarian, and she told me her 6-year old daughter said “Oh, you’re going to meet Gunila? That’s good, it always makes you so happy, you laugh so much”.
Taking “Play” out of the education is like clipping my wings, so I finally came full circle and decided to stop trying to be someone I’m not.
Now I interweave playfulness wherever I can: Funny metaphors and comparisons, gifs and memes, videos that reflect the funny side of my work, and a LOT of laughing at my own brain and failures.
If you have shrunk that part of you that used to be fun and playful, because now you’re a grown adult that “should be efficient, professional and serious”, how do you think that has affected you?
What activities did you use to enjoy, that you don’t do anymore because “it’s just play, and I’m an adult now”?
If you find yourself becoming a “boring adult”, that has lost their passion and spark trying to do the right thing all the time, I encourage you to get out of your comfort zone and try out a new activity just for fun.
If you’ve toned down your content creation and appearance in order to appeal to a broader audience and try to be more professional, I encourage you to tone it UP again, even if it feels uncomfortable initially.
In order to find your inner playful self, a new PLAY activity you should DEFINITELY try if you haven’t already, to get you out and meet new people while playing and using your body is CrossFit. Everyone thinks it’s just buff people showing off, until you TRY it, and you get addicted.
Jumping over boxes for no reason, and challenging yourself surrounded by other people working with you to pumping music brings you both out of your comfort zone in a safe environment, but you also get a strong sense of connection with everyone. And it’s all for PLAY (and getting in shape, but you forget about that part when you’re in it).
No matter the shape you’re in, no matter if you’ve never done anything like that before and feel self-conscious … People doing Crossfit are NICE and supportive and will treat you with respect and kindness, and to be honest it’s more fun when you’re not that good at it because you can let yourself be a bit goofy, and laugh at yourself!
Most centers will have a free trial session, so give it a go!
Check out Gunila's playful life coaching lessons (with cat memes!) on her Instagram.
💃 Playful Creativity
When was the last time you really played?
Your creative advocate Michele Arocena offers you some hot play tips based on very recent experiences with her niece!
When was the last time you really played? Not scrolling or swiping, not color-coding your calendar, not checking off your to-do list. Just doing something joyful, for no other reason than it makes you genuinely smile.
When Billy invited me to write about the topic of play, a movie titled "Camp Tita Michele: Summer Adventures 2025" popped into my head. It starred my 4-year-old niece and me rolling around like logs in the grass, deep belly laughing, and chasing sand crabs on Cape May beach.
But it wasn't always like this. For 10 years in New York City, I lived in "work hard" mode as an Urgent Care physician assistant, seeing up to 80 patients in 13-hour shifts. On my days off, I spent most of my time just recovering. Stress became my baseline. My job title became my identity. On the outside I looked successful, but inside I was unfulfilled and stuck.
That's when I realized something vital was missing: Play.
Play is Our Natural State of Being
I once thought play was frivolous, just for kids until I experienced how creative play became my pathway out of burnout.
Play isn't just an activity. It's a way of being.
It's moving through the world with childlike curiosity, asking big questions without needing immediate answers, experimenting with the courage to ask "what if?" then taking action to find out.
Your inner child knows this already, but somewhere along the way we forget.
We get caught up in life's challenges and ignore our creative nudges, sometimes for years (at least in my case), until they get louder and louder. We put play and work in separate boxes, believing joy has to be earned only after we've finished our serious adult tasks.
So we get stuck.
Magic in the Messy Middle
Are you feeling stuck in the messy middle of life or business right now? Perhaps you’re navigating an unexpected job change, a breakup, a change to your living situation. Or maybe you can't decide on your new business offer.
I'm right there with you.
Here's what I'm curious about…
If your messy middle were a metaphor, what would it be? Does it have a color? Sound? What scene in a kid’s playroom would capture how it feels?
My messy middle changes daily.
Sometimes it's a pottery wheel spinning at full speed with too much water, and I'm frantically trying to catch the runaway blob of clay. Other times, it feels like Sharpie scribbles on a white countertop, where the harder I scrub, the deeper the stain seems to set.
But here's what I've discovered…
While life's transitions can be uncomfortable, I think there's something beautiful about the messy middle. In this place of the unknown, there's space for possibilities, for colorful emotions and wisdom from your inner child to surface.
There's aliveness.
Proof there was a human existing. Trying their very best.
The messy middle is a playground. And what if the messiest moments are exactly when we need to play the most?
Play Unlocks Creativity
When I finally gave myself permission to play, like getting my hands dirty in soil as a salesperson in a cute Brooklyn plant store before my PA night shift, sewing face masks, doodling, and taking salsa classes, something shifted. These weren't "productive" activities, yet I felt more energized and more like myself again.
Following my playful curiosity opened new doors I never could have imagined.
It led me to create floral arrangements for Formula-E race car events, design ID badges for healthcare workers, and ultimately start a coaching business guiding people on their wellness journey using Neurographica, hypnosis, and other creative healing practices.
Play wasn’t separate from my work, it was the key to reinventing my entire life and career.
Through low-stakes, playful experimentation, we get to try on different ways of being. This isn't "just playing around.”
You're doing research in possibility, discovering your inner strengths and resources, and building capacity to feel at home with yourself no matter what life throws at you.
Give Yourself Permission to Play
What would your life be like if you gave yourself full permission to play?
Your inner child holds the clues. Think back on what lit you up as a child and notice what sparks your curiosity and excitement today.
Feeling stuck?
Here's one of my favorite playful resets: Bilateral Drawing. This quick science-backed technique helps you shift from stress into ease and flow simply by drawing with both hands.
How to play: Grab a piece of paper and two pencils (or markers, crayons, any coloring materials will do)
Hold one pencil in each hand, place them both on the page, and move them around at the same time. Try drawing mirrored circles, swirls, sideways figure eights, or whatever wants to be expressed.
Do this for two minutes. Then notice what has shifted. That's it!
