Don’t Be A Herb - Have Some Fun
Ok, let’s start with the term “Herb”
HERB *urbandictionary.com
1. To be wack. Worthy of being mocked. Weak, chumpish, and generally to be avoided.
2. Mocking term of friends and/ or enemies.
Now that we have a shared understanding of what it means to be a “Herb”, let’s talk about how you can avoid this state of being at all costs!
My cure is simple - HAVE MORE FUN! Having fun makes you energetic, allows you to get Jiggy With It, and makes you a people magnet.
Truth bomb - Fun is a limited commodity these days. We are chained to our tech, our jobs, our obligations that we barely have a minute to just goof off, kick back, indulge in something silly, and…wait for it…SMILE
Herbs don’t know how to have fun.
It’s time to take a good look in the mirror and diagnose yourself. Are you a herb? A Bevis? A Butthead?
Or
…are you a Spice Girl?
If you’re feeling like a good time these days is another night in, where you paint your nails with Hard Candy Nail Polish and circle the clothes you covet in the Delia’s catalogue, this one is for you.
Change your routines - You wake up at the same time each day. You go to the same coffee shop each day. You do the same exercise on the same app at the same time. Eat the same lunch at the same time. Even your bathroom breaks are predictable!
STOP! Hammer Time.
Take a minute to think about something you could do differently.
Maybe you wake up a half hour early twice a week?
Make a left instead of a right, and take the longer way to get to the office.
Make a list of the routines that are keeping you on the hamster wheel, and pick one or two to shake up. Small changes can have huge impact and offer you a totally new perspective on your day.
2. Stop Planning, Start Living - I love a plan as much as the next person. Color code it, and I’m yours forever. But here’s the thing, plans are actually preventing you from having fun NOW! Plans have you planted and focused on the future.
Take that gorgeous spread sheet and throw it in the shredder. What you need is to grab your besties and head over to the mall for some FroYo. Sit on the side of the fountain and scope out the hotties. Get in the car, roll down the windows, stick your arm out and let the air ride under your hand and create waves.
Be here now. Not in the future, not stuck on your phone, but in this moment, in the right now.
3. Spice (Girls) of Life - Try something new! Next time you have the urge to get the salad from the same salad place with the same exact ingredients you got last time, challenge yourself. Throw in some olives, pick a new dressing, heck, throw that pretty baby in a wrap. I don’t want to get crazy here but maybe…get soup instead!!!
Here are some other ideas…
Get a tattoo - Sure, you might regret getting Ren and Stimpy inked on your calf muscle, but surely now is as good of a time as any to get that tasteful little number you’ve been dreaming about. And if your tasteful little number is a Ren and Stimpy tattoo on your calf, you have ZERO objections from me. Do it!
Cut your hair! I just did. It’s the best decision I didn’t know I absolutely needed to make.
Throw on a 90s mix while making dinner. Say, “Alexa, play the Lemonheads album, Shame About Ray” and thank me later. Preemptively, you’re welcome.
Fun is one of those things that doesn’t just happen to you. Often times, you need to create your fun! Get out of your rut and incorporate new ways of being, and here’s my greatest bit of wisdom - Booyah.
4. Give Yourself Permission To Have Fun - Things can be so heavy - especially right now. Speaking of theater (we weren’t, but now we are) - this year has reminded me of a recitation my fellow actors and I used to say to warm ourselves up before a show:
“To sit in solemn silence on a dull, dark dock in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock from a cheap and chippy chopper on a big, black block.” ― W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado
How dark is this and also how perfectly 2021? We’re all just sitting on a dull dark dock waiting for the inevitable…our heads to get cut off or for Y2K or something equally catastrophic!
So how about instead of that, we decide that we are worthy of having some fun? Let’s commit to be willing to change things up, just because it will make us feel joy. Let’s add spice to our lives for the sake of spice. Sometimes it feels like we need permission even when we don’t. I get that, and especially when we’ve been constrained by lots of things.
But here I am, your permission fairy. Go and kick up some fun!