Playing isn’t just for kids.

Everyone plays. We play with our food, we play with the car radio, we play fantasy sports, and so on.

For the last couple of months I have been taking it easy…I’ve been thinking about playing. I love to have a good time. I’m always cracking jokes, I love my gadgets, my house, and just having a good time. However, one of the things my disability affects is the way I play. As a child I couldn’t put together a puzzle, ride a bike, or run in the park. Yet, I had a very happy childhood. My parents took my sister and me on trips. We used to go to Disneyland at least a couple of times a year. When I was younger, I was a lot smaller, so my father and my mother would just take me out of my chair and plop me on the rides. I used to watch my friends play basketball in the street and it didn’t really bother me to be on the sidelines.

I didn’t feel like I was on the sidelines.

As I grew older, I started to think about the concept of playing and realized that people play all the time. They make the perfect bite of food by mixing just the right amount of meat, cheese, and potatoes; when they get a minute, they engage in a game of Angry Birds; they take a picture of their food and upload it to Facebook. In fact, I contend that Facebook and Twitter are just one big toy. Obviously, people use social media to connect with others, and marketers use it like I do–but for the most part it’s one big toy. And that’s okay. I think that everything in life has to lead to some kind of fun. Part of the reason I love speaking is because I get to make people laugh. When I’m onstage with my partner Rich, I’m playing. It’s one big play date for me.

I love it.

I love fun.

I love my gadgets.

I love making people laugh.

As I’m writing this, I have 70s music blasting through my sound system with a remote that you don’t have to point at the television. How cool is that? I love my toys.

So go out there and play!

Timelapse - Lighthouse (Oct 2012) from IMK Digital Multimedia on Vimeo.