Fun and the professional woman

By Galia BarHava-Monteith

Time for fun?

Let’s be honest here: “professional woman” and “having fun” are two concepts that don’t exactly roll off the tongue together. When I hear of a professional woman, the image I conjure up is one of an articulate, smart, successful, ambitious and hard working woman. ‘Fun’ doesn’t exactly come into it, but hard working definitely is a key feature. The professional women I know are dedicated and, yes, extremely professional. When you ask them to do something they will most certainly do it; they take care of everyone around them; they are reliable and trustworthy. But fun? Who has time for fun?

At first I thought this might have something to do with the old ‘Protestant work ethic’. However, as I am Jewish and pretty intense myself, that hypothesis doesn’t quite work!

So why is it? Why is Fun a topic we struggle to engage with – despite our efforts to look at all areas of our lives? Well, the great philosopher, Dr Seuss, phrased this conundrum much better than I will ever be able to at the end of one of my all time favourite meditations on having fun – The Cat in the Hat:

"It’s fun to have fun but you have to know how!"

How very true, I think to myself every time I read the book to my kids. What is it about having fun that is so elusive for many of us, serious, intelligent, professional women? And what is “fun”?

What is Fun?

Like most things in life, it’s much easier to articulate what having fun is NOT. It’s not about ‘work life balance’ or relaxation techniques. It’s not about taking care of yourself (although it is an element of it). And to me, it’s not necessarily about ‘partying’.

So I went exploring in the dictionary:

Fun (noun):

1. something that provides mirth or amusement: A picnic would be fun.
2. enjoyment or playfulness: She's full of fun.

So there you have it, for us organised, focused lot – how do you schedule or plan for mirth or amusement? How do you organise playfulness? My husband is fond of saying that his dear wife loves to be spontaneous, as long as he gives her sufficient advance warning..!

Letting Go

Fun is so elusive. I love having fun, but fun is about letting yourself go a bit, to be in the moment, to let loose and be able to really laugh out loud and potentially make a fool of yourself in the process. And that can be hard, really, really hard for professional women. Having fun involves taking risks – a bit like telling a good joke – if it succeeds, everyone laughs and it is fun, but if it fails, you can end up looking like an idiot.

Is it a wonder then, that we professional woman who have trained ourselves, and have been trained by others our entire careers, to be in control, to carefully manage both our image and our interactions find it difficult to ‘let loose’?

How do you achieve fun if you can’t schedule for it? I ask this being a poster girl for the Type A personality type.

You schedule and create opportunities to hang out with great friends with whom you feel safe, with whom you can make a fool of yourself and who won’t judge you. It’s all about relationships. To be able to let go, to be able to take risks and be in the moment, we have to feel safe. That’s why relationships and friendships are so important to us. With my kids, I now know that really taking the time to be able to be in the moment with them and hang out is when we have fun together. Now, I make sure we have these opportunities. It certainly isn’t fun to be with the kids when I am trying to do my supermarket shopping and having to field questions from clients on the phone while arguing with the kids about which cereal they can have!

With our partners, as life gets busy, it isn’t fun when all we do is arrange and do chores. So now I schedule dates and trips away with my husband, so that we can just hang out and create the time and the space to have fun. At first it did feel a bit awkward to have to do that, but without the time to really be with each other, how can we have fun together?

Friendship

I can’t write about fun without writing about friendships. I now know who the friends are that I can really let loose with, and who won’t judge me. These are the friends I truly have fun with. When our lives are so busy, I think it is extremely important to make sure we spend our social time with people with whom we feel we can be ourselves and just relax and have fun.

Of course, I couldn’t write about letting our hair down and having fun without a special mention of the ‘girls’. Those mythological creatures in any woman’s life which are immortalized in TV programmes like ‘Sex in the City’ and ‘Desperate Housewives.’ Having fun with the girls, well, there really isn’t anything like it.

I guess you can schedule for fun, by making sure you have the right environment with the right people and just let it happen. I know there will be those of you who will say that you can have fun on your own – do you? Do tell me how. But to me it inevitably comes down to making sure I have great relationships in my life with people I love and who love me, with whom I feel I can just be.

So, to indulge the Type A part of me, I schedule the opportunities, the dinner parties, the BBQ’s, the bush walks, the beach outings. Then all I need to do is just be in the moment, take it easy, have a glass of wine, chill and have fun! I am proud to say I am getting quite good at it.

What about you?

Thanks for this, it’s really made me think about how and when I have fun. I do get a lot of pleasure and enjoyment out of taking some time out to read a book or do a crossword, but for me fun is about being relaxed and comfortable with friends and family where you feel "safe" enough to be myself (not my work version of me) - even when that does involve, as you say, making a fool of yourself.

I agree with you Galia and find myself also ‘scheduling’ fun in – if it’s not scheduled, then it’s too easy to let something else take priority! I love those childhood fun moments e.g skipping down the street holding hands, rolling down sandhills together, stepping on a crack and marrying a rat, spinning round and round on a swivel chair until you get dizzy, jumping on a bed – all good belly laugh stuff if you give yourself permission and get involved.

Last week, I took the children to  my parents for a 5 days holiday.  At one stage, my daughter got stuck into me when yet again I was on my phone answering emails and phone calls.  She wanted to know why I was always working and reminded me that I was supposed to be on holiday.  Of course I guiltily rationalised why, while the coach in me realised I was truly busted!

We are off  tomorrow for a long weekend, and I am going to make sure I don’t look at my phone until at least midday Monday (realistically I know I can’t not look for the whole day – especially as I am out with a client as well next week).  Is that rationalisation again?