I talk a lot about the F* word.

In fact, it’s one of my very favorite words.

Fun.

But my F* word, it seems, isn’t always fun or fanciful for folks to hear about.

In fact, I frequently find that discussions of fun can make folks downright frantic – fretful and frenetic!

Case in point: I had finished speaking to a professional association and was in the back of the room signing books. A man approached. He was in his mid-forties; a bit overweight; still dressed in his jacket and tie at 8:00 in the evening. He was pale and wide-eyed… and nearly breathless.

“I have a serious problem with what you just said,” he nearly yelled.

In a moment of panic, my mind raced back over the keynote I had just delivered, scanning it for what might have been upsetting, unsettling, unnerving, controversial.

While I certainly have the capacity to cross the line from time to time, I couldn’t think of a damn thing.

What seems to be the problem?” I asked.

Now, even more wide-eyed, and even more breathless, he blurted: “I can’t remember what’s fun.”

And – seriously – I thought he was going to cry.

The theme of my talk had been the importance of nurturing ourselves; of re-creating ourselves; of re-capturing a grand and exciting vision for our lives. I had ended it with a call to arms of sorts: “Reclaim the fun, reclaim the laughter, reclaim the joy.” (Kinda mainstream stuff I had – erroneously – thought.)

But this man couldn’t remember the fun; he couldn’t remember what once brought him joy.

And in that moment he had confronted an abyss that can overtake even those of us most vigilant.

Buried as he was (and as so many of us are) in the responsibilities of his work, his marriage, his children, the bills , the boss, the clients, the cholesterol, the mortgage, the tuitions, the parents, the in-laws,  the blood pressure, the e-mails, the voice-mails, the text messages, the in-box, the out box, the lawn, the snow plowing, the never-ending demands and expectations that are the fabric of our lives… .

He had forgotten. What was fun. And he had freaked!

Luckily, it’s not hard to find the fun.  I took him aside to the corner of the room. And quietly connected:

• What were your extracurricular activities in high school?
• What did you love to do in college?
• What makes you laugh?
• If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
• If you could buy any magazine on the shelf, what would it be?
• If money and time were no object, what would you do?

He smiled.  There was a glimmer. He could remember.

No, recovering what was fun, what once rung your bell is not difficult. The challenge, it seems, is to go out and do it again.

To give to yourself the “luxury” of joy.

I have a dear friend who always admonishes: Never forget the fun-factor.

Fun is fundamental to our wholeness.

Without the fun, we lose our horizons.

This week: make it a point to do something – for yourself – just for fun.

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This, we refer to as Type II Fun: Fun in retrospect!