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Fun is a moral, ethical responsibility

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36 episodes into my journey with The Intentionally Vicarious Podcast, it struck me that it might be time to take a step back and reexamine the reasons I decided to produce the thing in the first place and the value I hope it provides to my listeners.

In doing so, it occurred to me that the tag line for the show – Learn how to have more fun than anyone else you know – might not fully convey my rationale. It’s accurate and I don’t plan to change it, but without a clear appreciation of my perspective on fun, the driving force behind Intentionally Vicarious might no be completely clear.

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The fact of the matter is that I genuinely do believe that having fun is a moral, ethical responsibility. I believe that because…

    • Having more fun than anyone else I know…
    • By doing, experiencing and learning about an expanding variety of things…
    • Then thinking deeply about the implications of those experiences and that new knowledge…
    • To gain the maximum possible perspective on the world around me…
    • Enables me to ensure that I contribute to its continuous improvement

It’s that last bullet point. That last piece of the fun puzzle that ties it all together. Having more fun than anyone else you know enables you to ensure that you contribute to the continuous improvement of the world around you.

Fun is much than than the simple joy of riding a bicycle, telling a good joke or watching a ball game. It’s fun to learn how to play the piano. It’s fun to learn ballroom dancing. It’s fun to research a heavy-duty issue like gun violence or political hypocrisy and reach my own conclusions. It’s fun to live vicariously through a young man who set 100 big, audacious goals for himself and achieved them all. It’s fun to meet and pick the brain of a guy like Newt Gingrich. It’s fun to serve on the board of  local non-profit organization. It’s fun to join with neighbors to pull weeds and clean up trash along the Atlanta Beltline.

Anything and everything I do; anything and everything you do; anything and everything anybody does; has the potential to be fun – IS fun – when it’s placed inside this larger context.

I encourage you to set a goal to have more fun than anyone else you know. Keep listening to this podcast and/or visiting IntentionallyVicarious.com to explore ways of having fun that might not otherwise occur to you. Do. Experience. Learn. Think long and hard about the implications and applications of what you learn. Broaden and deepen your perspective. Use that broader, deeper perspective to make the world around you just a little bit better. Then start the cycle all over again.

Get out there and have more fun than anyone else you know.

I’m your Intentionally Vicarious host Todd Youngblood. And I hope what I just said had some value to you. Thanks for paying attention!


Now get out there and implement your own vicarious.
Do it now and post that IV Score!


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