That work-hum is LOUD. It acts like a titan by dictating what to do next, elevating status-serving efforts over soul-serving ones. This hum says Love does not define our status, work does. This hum relegates play to children and never to us adults. This is how we miss the magical secret children readily have access to: we invest in a special kind of misery we've traded in for the tried and true asset of playfulness. What if this abundant hum is the reminder that a key offering Love gives us is play?

The hum is joy-specific. The real hum is love-specific. The hum is the electricity that comes from being excited by life. The real hum is confidence and peace. The real hum ignores the stare of history, and the balls in the air, and the expectation, and the pressure.

The real hum sounds like play to me. Can you hear it? Play is the joyous, exciting, life-giving, confidence- and peace-boosting vehicle of Love. A vehicle that zooms past the historical "you're not allowed to be that way," detours around ball-juggling, and cuts itself loose from pressure. When I teach about play (yes, I teach adults about play), I offer markers to help identify play by naming how it feels: low or no pressure, fun, and joy in the body. What is play to you? How can you say “yes” more often to a hum of play?…