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The 3 ingredients for fun: an expert's formula for experiencing genuine delight
People take part in the annual International Pillow Fight Day in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 2018.
Robin Utrecht/AFP via Getty Images
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People take part in the annual International Pillow Fight Day in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 2018.
Robin Utrecht/AFP via Getty Images
Search “how to have fun” on Google and literally billions of search results come up. People pay hundreds of dollars to hire party coaches and play coaches. There are seminars and workshops on how to have fun in life.
What’s so hard about having fun?
Packed schedules and the pressure to succeed discourage people from taking a step back and unwinding. For some of us, the guilt of not being productive makes fun, well, not fun.
“Everyone is so busy but yet unfulfilled,” Catherine Price, the author of The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again, told NPR.
With a background as a science journalist, Price sought to parse out the ingredients for “true fun,” as she calls it. Her answer is the overlapping states of playfulness, connection and flow.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Andrew Limbong: Can you define some terms here: What is “fun”?
Catherine Price: So what I found is that the dictionary definition doesn’t match the lived experience when people have fun. So I decided to try to come up with a better definition of what fun is. And the definition I came up with is that fun — or “true fun,” as I call it — is the combination of three states: playfulness, connection and flow. And when those three states are together, like the center of the Venn diagram, that is the feeling of fun.
Playfulness does not mean you have to play games. A lot of adults get very nervous when you use the word “playfulness,” so I like to say you don’t have to necessarily be silly or childish. It’s really just more about having a lighthearted attitude towards life and towards yourself.
Connection refers to this feeling of having a special shared experience with other people. And then flow is active and engaged. And really importantly, flow requires you to be present. So if you’re distracted at all, you can’t be in flow and you can’t have fun.
Limbong: People are hiring a party coach or a fun coach. And on the one hand, I can see people like myself rolling their eyes at this, you know? But on the other hand, I don’t know if it’s something akin to a physical trainer, someone to just help you along. I want to get your take on why these jobs exist and how have we commodified the business of fun.
Price: I think that the reason that there’s a market for such things is that there’s a genuine problem, which is that we’re not feeling connection or playfulness or flow that often. Things feel very serious. We are very lonely and isolated. And we’re very distracted. Everyone is so busy but yet unfulfilled. So I think that the market does speak to this genuine longing that we have for something more.
On the flip side, I don’t think it’s necessary to do that. I think that there are steps each of us can take and reflections we can engage in that can fill our lives with more everyday moments of fun without having to spend money. I mean, I literally have thousands of stories from people around the world about fun, and it’s fascinating to notice how few of those involve people spending money or even going anywhere. I think those are two misperceptions we have about fun: that it costs money and that you have to be outside of your everyday life for it to occur.
Children play in the snow in Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight, off England’s southern coast, in 1940.
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Children play in the snow in Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight, off England’s southern coast, in 1940.
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Limbong: But I wonder, then, how much social media plays into this, right? Because I know when I play with my nieces and nephew, my sister then always gets out her camera. Then we’ve got to pose in the leaves or whatever, and she has to post on the ‘gram. It’s like, well, we were just having fun. (Shout-out to my sister: I hope you’re listening. I love you!) But what does social media do with our perception and our concept of having fun?
Price: I think it’s really messed us up because one of the requirements for fun is that you be completely present and that your inner critic is silent. And if you’re performing, then you’re not fully present and you probably have your inner critic on in some capacity. That kills fun. Fun is very fragile. It’s like a sensitive flower.
Limbong: So I’m going to come to you hat in hand. If I want to start having more fun today, where do I start?
Price: I would suggest that you think back on moments from your own life that stand out to you as having been fun and notice what themes emerge, because these are things that you should prioritize. I’d also say, though, to really play around with the idea of how could you build more playfulness, connection and flow into your everyday life. You know, how could you be more present? How could you reduce distractions? One suggestion I always give for playfulness in particular that I love is to try to be playfully rebellious — do things that kind of break the rules of adult life a little bit — not in the way of getting you arrested, but just something that delights you. Like, do stuff that delights you, and create delight for other people.
The last suggestion is prioritize it. That’s the most important thing: Take fun seriously. Play around with it, and just notice the difference in your mood. We should be having more fun. The world would be a better place if we had more fun.
A man is tackled after spraying an unknown substance at US Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (L) during a town hall she was hosting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 27, 2026. (Photo by Octavio JONES / AFP via Getty Images)
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Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was rushed by a man during a town hall event Tuesday night and sprayed with a liquid via a syringe.
Footage from the event shows a man approaching Omar at her lectern as she is delivering remarks and spraying an unknown substance in her direction, before swiftly being tackled by security. Omar called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign or face impeachment immediately before the assault.
Noem has faced criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minneapolis Saturday.
Omar’s staff can be heard urging her to step away and get “checked out,” with others nearby saying the substance smelled bad.
“We will continue,” Omar responded. “These f******* a**holes are not going to get away with it.”
A statement from Omar’s office released after the event said the individual who approached and sprayed the congresswoman is now in custody.
“The Congresswoman is okay,” the statement read. “She continued with her town hall because she doesn’t let bullies win.”
A syringe lays on the ground after a man, left, approached Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, during a town hall event in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. The man was apprehended after spraying an unknown substance according to the Associated Press. Photographer: Angelina Katsanis/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Omar followed up with a statement on social media saying she will not be intimidated.
I’m ok. I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work.
I don’t let bullies win.
Grateful to my incredible constituents who rallied behind me. Minnesota strong.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 28, 2026
As Omar continued her remarks at the town hall, she said: “We are Minnesota strong and we will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw at us.”
Just three days ago, fellow Democrat Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida said he was assaulted at the Sundance Festival by a man “who told me that Trump was going to deport me before he punched me in the face.”
Threats against Congressional lawmakers have been rising. Last year, there was an increase in security funding in the wake of growing concerns about political violence in the country.
According to the U.S. Capitol Police, the number of threat assessment cases has increased for the third year in a row. In 2025, the USCP investigated 14,938 “concerning statements, behaviors, and communications” directed towards congressional lawmakers, their families and staff. That figure represents a nearly 58% increase from 2024.
new video loaded: F.A.A. Ignored Safety Concerns Prior to Collision Over Potomac, N.T.S.B. Says
transcript
transcript
F.A.A. Ignored Safety Concerns Prior to Collision Over Potomac, N.T.S.B. Says
The National Transportation Safety Board said that a “multitude of errors” led to the collision between a military helicopter and a commercial jet, killing 67 people last January.
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“I imagine there will be some difficult moments today for all of us as we try to provide answers to how a multitude of errors led to this tragedy.” “We have an entire tower who took it upon themselves to try to raise concerns over and over and over and over again, only to get squashed by management and everybody above them within F.A.A. Were they set up for failure?” “They were not adequately prepared to do the jobs they were assigned to do.”
By Meg Felling
January 27, 2026
President Trump speaks as U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth looks on during a meeting of his Cabinet at the White House in December 2025.
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Relatives of two Trinidadian men killed in an airstrike last October are suing the U.S. government for wrongful death and for carrying out extrajudicial killings.
The case, filed in Massachusetts, is the first lawsuit over the strikes to land in a U.S. federal court since the Trump administration launched a campaign to target vessels off the coast of Venezuela. The American government has carried out three dozen such strikes since September, killing more than 100 people.
Among them are Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, who relatives say died in what President Trump described as “a lethal kinetic strike” on Oct. 14, 2025. The president posted a short video that day on social media that shows a missile targeting a ship, which erupts in flame.
“This is killing for sport, it’s killing for theater and it’s utterly lawless,” said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “We need a court of law to rein in this administration and provide some accountability to the families.”
The White House and Pentagon justify the strikes as part of a broader push to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S. The Pentagon declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying it doesn’t comment on ongoing litigation.
But the new lawsuit described Joseph and Samaroo as fishermen doing farm work in Venezuela, with no ties to the drug trade. Court papers said they were headed home to family members when the strike occurred and now are presumed dead.
Neither man “presented a concrete, specific, and imminent threat of death or serious physical injury to the United States or anyone at all, and means other than lethal force could have reasonably been employed to neutralize any lesser threat,” according to the lawsuit.
Lenore Burnley, the mother of Chad Joseph, and Sallycar Korasingh, the sister of Rishi Samaroo, are the plaintiffs in the case.
Their court papers allege violations of the Death on the High Seas Act, a 1920 law that makes the U.S. government liable if its agents engage in negligence that results in wrongful death more than 3 miles off American shores. A second claim alleges violations of the Alien Tort Statute, which allows foreign citizens to sue over human rights violations such as deaths that occurred outside an armed conflict, with no judicial process.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Jonathan Hafetz at Seton Hall University School of Law are representing the plaintiffs.
“In seeking justice for the senseless killing of their loved ones, our clients are bravely demanding accountability for their devastating losses and standing up against the administration’s assault on the rule of law,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior counsel at the ACLU.
U.S. lawmakers have raised questions about the legal basis for the strikes for months but the administration has persisted.
—NPR’s Quil Lawrence contributed to this report.
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