This review is going to be a little different than my usual — a little more personal. If you’re on my email list, you may have seen that my “word of the year” for this year is “Delight.” For me, this encompasses a handful of related concepts: joy, play, mindfulness (in the sense of being fully present in the immediate moment) and, yes, fun.

Ironically, because the heart of this for me is that I’m good at “doing,” but not so much at just “being,” I needed a resource to give me some direction on what to do in order to attain this ability to “just be.” And The Fun Habit delivered.

What is The Fun Habit?

There are really two elements intertwined in this book: a look at the psychology and biochemistry of fun, and practical suggestions for incorporating more fun into our lives. Because of the psychological element, I found this to be (ironically), not a very “fun” read. It wasn’t as “light” as I was expecting, reading-wise. It was chock-full of insights, though. My note software is telling me that my notes alone are a more-than-thirty-minute read!

And it definitely provided the foundational direction I was looking for, starting from a diagram that looks a little bit like this:

The left column is easier Activities; the right is harder activities. The top is more fun; the bottom is less fun, and the idea is to adjust our lives so we aren’t hanging out in only the bottom row.

“P” is for “pleasing” activities — these are consciously pleasurable, but not very involved. Like maybe taking a walk in the sunshine. “L” is “living” activities. These are high-fun, but also pretty involved — like taking a vacation or walking the Appalachian trail. (Of course, everyone’s threshold of “involved” will be a bit different.)

“A” is for “Agonizing.” These are the things that aren’t very fun, but we have to do them. (You’ll want to make sure the “agonizing” activities on your plate really do have to be done. Otherwise, get rid of them!  See my 3-D IMG method for more about this.)

“Y” is “Yielding” activities. These are what most of us are doing in most of our free time — these are easy things but they aren’t necessarily very fun. Rather, we tend to fall into them by default. Like endless scrolling on Facebook or watching whatever is on TV just because it’s on.

I might make one little adjustment to this diagram, so it looks like this:

Although this is taking some liberties with Rucker’s diagram, it’s consistent with what he communicates in the book — that we need to also allow plenty of time for sleep/rest. I would assign the “S” here to “Sleep” and/or “Sabbath.”

Rucker goes on to talk about how we can accomplish these things, using a “Fun File” (that we create for ourselves) and a method he calls SAVOR — for Story editing, Activity bundling, Variable hedonics, Options, and Reminiscing. I’ll avoid spoiler alerts and let you read the book for yourself to learn more about each of these elements.

Besides talking about fun in life in general, he also spends some time talking about fun in parenting/with our kids, fun at work, and fun in volunteerism.

More About The Fun Habit

I found that many of the psychological insights found throughout the book are also applicable to other areas of life. In particular, there are some applications to church and education (which you may get to see me ruminate on at a later date).

It’s important to note that this is a secular book, and the author’s worldview — very different from mine, at base — comes through. There are a few expletives scattered throughout the book, as well, so be aware of that if that’s a deal-breaker. But it’s mostly respectful of other views. The one sort-of exception might be the opposition to the so-called “Protestant work ethic” and, let’s face it, that’s our fault. (Where did we get the stupid idea that a “biblical work ethic” = workaholism? Certainly not from the Bible!)  And the insights and conclusions are not only consistent with a biblical worldview but, in many cases, exceptionally supportive of it.

One important characteristic in particular is that it’s balanced. Perhaps surprisingly so, given that it’s a book about “Fun.” Although the focus is on fun activities (which also tend, for the most part, to be positive, enjoyable ones), Rucker took care to avoid toxic positivity or anything that might smack of irresponsibility.

Fun in real life has to be balanced with the understanding that not-so-fun things have to get done, and that not all of life feels “happy.” (In fact, part of the book‘s foundational premise is that “happiness” is a deceptive concept, in part because it demands that we never feel sadness, sorrow, grief, etc. Fun is more about redeeming the time even when our circumstances are sorrowful.) In short, he recognizes Fun as an important element of a holistically-lived life, and treats it as such.