If you’re not having fun, what’s the point? 

In today’s society, there’s so much value assigned to staying busy, getting good grades and achieving as much success as possible. For the most part, I’m on board with this sentiment. Hard work is entirely essential to the culture of productivity often emphasized by the human race, but without fun to balance out the hard work, there’s no point to the hard work at all. People need something to work toward. Pranks are an incredible way to alleviate stress in high-pressure environments, and their value should not be underestimated.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, there are several positive characteristics to pranks, which include strengthening cognitive skills, strengthening social skills and dopamine increasing. In my personal experience, pranks have been an integral part of my childhood for all three of these reasons. I have a multitude of memories involving my little brother and I attempting to prank our parent, and although we fought incessantly when we were young, we’d always set our differences aside to come up with elaborate ideas to fool our mother. It helped us find a way to get along, and it made us a lot closer.

Especially in the midst of Covid-19, when I was new to Carmel, living in a janky apartment and entirely quarantined, pulling silly pranks was a lighthearted way to extricate myself from the situation I was in. They alleviated some of the stress I felt during that time period, and I could feel myself experiencing the benefits of every one of the aforementioned upsides to pulling pranks. It’d give me something creative to do, something social to do and something fun to do. During Covid, those criteria were difficult to fulfill, so the ability to pull pranks was an excellent way to do so.

However, it is important to note that I’m only condoning the practice of harmless pranks. When executed incorrectly, pranks can prove to be over-the-top or even dangerous in the wrong context. Hurting people, either physically or emotionally, isn’t a fair price to pay in the name of fun.

All in all, pranks are essential to cognitive development and social development alike. Holidays such as April Fool’s Day encourage lighthearted behavior in today’s intense society will always have my stamp of approval, no matter how old or busy I get.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Evelyn Foster at efoster@hilite.org.