A recent national survey found something rather alarming. Nearly half of Americans say the fun has faded from their lives. The top excuse is predictable — money. Over half say they simply can’t afford to enjoy themselves any more.

Interestingly, the people who do make time for fun report less stress, stronger relationships, and more motivation. In other words, the payoff is real. And the barrier is not as simple as the price tag.

There’s also something to be said for reviving lost habits: pickup sports, church gatherings, volunteering, even old-fashioned storytelling.

We have trained ourselves to think fun is expensive. That didn’t happen by accident. Social media sells a deadly diet of curated lifestyles — vacations, rooftop bars, luxury dinners, perfectly staged “memories.” Reality TV ups the ante with drama and excess. Fun, in this version of life, is something you buy, document, and broadcast. If it doesn’t look impressive, it doesn’t count.

That idea is both wrong and exhausting.

Simple, local, shared

For most of human history, fun was simple, local, and shared. It was built around people, not purchases. Somewhere along the way, we replaced connection with consumption and then acted surprised when both our wallets and our spirits ran dry.

The truth is, some of the best forms of fun cost next to nothing, and they tend to be the ones that actually work.

Start with the obvious: time with other people. The survey itself admits what many already know but ignore — shared fun strengthens relationships. Not curated, expensive outings. Just shared time.

A backyard cookout beats a $200 night out more often than people admit. A few burgers, a cheap speaker, maybe someone brings a folding chair that’s seen better days. It’s not glamorous. That’s the point. People relax. They talk. They laugh hard, let their hair down, and leave feeling re-energized.

Playing, not paying

Game nights are another example. Not the staged, Instagram-ready kind, but the slightly chaotic version. A deck of cards, an ancient board game, or even something improvised. Half the fun is in the arguing over rules and the inevitable cheating accusations.

Then there's the outdoors, still one of the best bargains left in America. A walk through the neighborhood, a hike up a nearby trail, a pickup game at the local court, an afternoon fishing at a quiet pond. None of it costs much more than the time you put in.

Even something as simple as a long drive can reset a person. No destination needed. Just music, conversation, and maybe a wrong turn that ends at a gas station selling fireworks, ammunition, and wedding dresses. Gas costs money, sure. But compared to most “entertainment,” it’s pocket change

Some ideas lean practical. Others lean a bit ridiculous, and that’s part of their charm.

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Thrift tour

Try a “no-spend day” with friends or family. The rule is simple: No one spends a dime, but everyone has to contribute an idea. You end up with a strange mix. Maybe a park visit, followed by a kitchen experiment, followed by someone insisting on teaching a skill they barely understand.

Or host a “bad movie night.” Everyone brings/suggests the worst film they can find. The goal isn’t to be entertained, but to acknowledge how terrible it is. You’ll get more genuine enjoyment out of that than sitting silently through a $250 million film whose plot you couldn't summarize at gunpoint.

There’s also something to be said for reviving lost habits: pickup sports, church gatherings, volunteering, even old-fashioned storytelling. These used to be normal parts of life. Now they feel almost novel, which says more about our culture than it should.

Other people's fun

The issue goes beyond money. It comes down to isolation.

The same survey points out that social circles have shrunk. People have fewer friends, fewer regular meetups, and fewer shared routines. That is not solved by a bigger paycheck. You can have more money and still sit alone on a couch, scrolling through other people’s “fun.”

In fact, that’s exactly what many people do.

There’s an idiotic assumption that if finances improved, life would suddenly feel fuller. But look at the data again. What people actually benefit from is participation rather than spending. It’s being with others. It’s stepping out of the passive role and into something shared.

Money can help, no doubt. It can remove certain barriers. But it cannot replace effort, initiative, or community. Those are choices.

If anything, the “money excuse” has become a convenient shield. It lets people avoid the obvious truth. Building a life with real enjoyment requires intention. It requires calling people, making plans, and actually showing up at the agreed-upon venue at the agreed-upon time.

Fun still exists. It just got crowded out — by work, by screens, by the idea that everything worthwhile must come with the swipe of a credit card.

Once we drop that idea, something refreshing happens. Fun becomes accessible again. So make the call, organize a game night, watch a so-bad-it's-good movie with more than one sad soul in the room. And prove that fun doesn't require a reservation, a dress code, or a payment plan.

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St. Herman’s Table, an Orthodox Christian ministry, serves meals and shares the gospel with the homeless at a park in Phoenix, Arizona, every Thursday. Volunteers distribute water, small hygiene items, and Bibles as part of their outreach.

However, this weekly act of almsgiving and evangelizing is now at the center of a lawsuit after the Phoenix City Council approved the Medical Treatment and Food Distribution in Parks Ordinance, which would effectively prevent St. Herman’s Table, a ministry of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Orthodox Church, from continuing its charitable efforts.

'Phoenix provides no evidence or meaningful argument explaining why a birthday party providing cake to twenty select two-year-olds is any less likely to strain park resources with noise or mess than a religiously-motivated gathering open to twenty members of the public.'

St. Herman’s Table and its founder, Lance Brace, filed a lawsuit against Phoenix, arguing that the new ordinance, which took effect in early June, violates the First Amendment and the Arizona Free Exercise of Religion Act by criminalizing their weekly almsgiving, which, he notes, is a mandatory practice of the Orthodox Church.

The city’s website described the ordinance as “establishing a comprehensive framework for medical treatment and food distribution events in City parks,” where there was previously no formal oversight. The new rule requires those like St. Herman’s Table to apply for a permit to distribute food.

Critics of the ordinance argue that it effectively amounts to a ban by limiting permits to just two per park each month. Furthermore, it restricts these activities to parking lots or other hardscape areas, which generally lack shade and other amenities.

Brace, who spoke with Blaze News, described what inspired him, his wife, and his son to start St. Herman’s Table. After becoming baptized into the Orthodox Church, Brace had an “overwhelming feeling” that he needed to help his local homeless neighbors.

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross Orthodox Church already had a program in which its parishioners would assemble bags filled with food, water, clothing, and other essential items. Church members would keep these care packages in their cars to be distributed to homeless individuals they encounter while driving around the city.

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Image source: Lance Brace

Brace became involved in the church’s charitable efforts and drove to various parks and other locations to provide care packages.

“We kept ending up at this same park, the Cave Creek Park at Cactus, and got to know several of the people that were there very consistently. And just had this feeling like this is where we need to be,” Brace said.

Father Thomas Frisby, with the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Orthodox Church, told Blaze News that St. Herman’s Table is a “grassroots” effort led by the Brace family.

“If you knew the couple that’s running this, they are just extremely conscientious and just great people. It was literally just birthed out of, they lived near there, they would see people in the park, and they’re like, ‘Let’s do something to help,’” Frisby stated.

In Oct. 2025, Brace and his family started preparing homemade meals on Wednesdays and setting up a buffet at the Cave Creek Park at Cactus on Thursday evenings to serve food and pray with those in need. Members of Brace’s church soon learned that he was hosting weekly meals at the park, and they began volunteering alongside Brace and his family.

“By about December, early January, we had consistently about five different parishioners that would come out every week. And it really became, at that point, an organization, an event,” Brace stated.

Around the same time St. Herman's Table was growing, the Phoenix City Council approved the Safe Medical Treatment in Parks Ordinance, which aimed to enhance park safety by regulating medical activities in public parks. Councilmembers’ Dec. 2025 decision to pass this ordinance followed resident concerns about sanitation issues in parks, particularly regarding drug use and discarded syringes.

The ordinance’s effective date was delayed twice “to allow time for stakeholder outreach to be conducted.” Then, in Mar. 2026, the city proposed a revised order, the Medical Treatment and Food Distribution in Parks Ordinance, which expanded regulations to limit food distribution. The new ordinance took effect on June 7.

The city’s ordinance does not apply to family members aiding one another, private gatherings, or the distribution of water.

Those who violate the order could be charged with a Class 1 misdemeanor, which could lead to a sentence of up to 180 days in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.

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Image source: Lance Brace

In response to the St. Herman’s Table lawsuit, a spokesperson for Phoenix stated that the city intends to defend its ordinance, which it believes is lawful.

Several days after St. Herman’s Table filed the complaint, a judge granted a temporary restraining order preventing the city from enforcing its ordinance against the organization and Brace for 14 days.

“Phoenix provides no evidence or meaningful argument explaining why a birthday party providing cake to twenty select two-year-olds is any less likely to strain park resources with noise or mess than a religiously-motivated gathering open to twenty members of the public,” the judge wrote.

Phoenix agreed to comply with the judge’s order, but argued that the ordinance “makes no distinction based on religion.”

“The City Council adopted this ordinance to ensure that all residents can enjoy their neighborhood parks, and it applies equally to anyone who wants to hold a feeding event at a park,” the city said. “The ordinance simply provides an effective tool to regulate and manage the growing competition in City parks between food distribution events and other, more traditional park uses, like children’s play, youth sports, adult recreation, and family outings.”

Brace rejected the idea that St. Herman's Table's efforts to feed the homeless compromise the cleanliness and safety of the park.

“Everything that we’re doing with St. Herman’s, we’re doing in love. And that includes how we’re approaching the City Council, the Parks Department, and potentially any police officers that might have to enforce this ordinance,” Brace stated. “They are also our neighbors, and we love them deeply.”

“It’s being a lot of times framed, in my opinion, as we don’t want clean and safe parks, right? That we want to take care of these people at the detriment of the park. And I just don’t agree with that,” he added.

He stated that St. Herman’s volunteers make a deliberate effort to remove trash before and after their weekly event. The group claims that the city has never cited them for the park gatherings.

When reached for comment on why the city chose to combine park restrictions on medical services and food distribution, rather than separating the two categories, Phoenix’s Parks and Recreation Department referred Blaze News to its webpage detailing the ordinance.

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There is a moment in every war, somewhere between the first triumphant press conference and the first encounter with reality, when the slogans begin to turn rancid.

Television panels flash maps. Talking heads bloviate. Officials insist that everything is proceeding according to plan. But you can’t outrun the truth forever. The central lie on which the war rested begins to collapse under the crushing weight of events.

Thomas Jefferson warned us more than two centuries ago: 'Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.' That remains the sanest policy available.

No one should sugarcoat what has happened: America has been defeated by a lesser regional power.

I was horrified when the war began. I said then that if the initial strikes failed to decapitate the Iranian government and cause the regime to fall, Iran had already won. I am no deep geopolitical expert and no Nostradamus, but anyone with modest knowledge of the region could see where this was headed.

Because of a geographic accident, a backward theocracy can threaten one of the most important arteries in the world economy. Roughly 20% of global energy supply moves through the Strait of Hormuz. If that flow is disrupted, the result is economic catastrophe. The problem is not just oil. Fertilizer, liquefied natural gas, petrochemicals, and dozens of inputs that make modern life possible move through the same system.

Meanwhile, because Iran has endured decades of sanctions, it is less exposed to some of the pressures now wrecking others. As oil prices spike, Tehran profits.

These facts do not require affection for the Iranian regime. Tehran’s record on political repression, censorship, regional adventurism, and support for militant proxies is horrific. The question was never whether one approves of the regime. The question was whether war would accomplish the objectives announced in its name.

Washington’s understanding of Iran has repeatedly proven shallower than policymakers imagine. Talk to Iranians who are not nostalgic for the shah, and they will often describe a much more complicated country than the bloodthirsty totalitarian caricature presented by much of the media. Many may hate the ayatollahs. But they also fear the alternative: a failed state like Syria or Libya.

Iran is an ancient civilization. Civilizations, unlike a school full of girls, cannot be destroyed from the air.

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What did victory even mean? Iran has nearly 100 million people, a territory almost three times the size of Texas, some of the most forbidding terrain on earth, and a population with deep nationalist feeling tied to 4,000 years of history. Short of reinstituting the draft and landing half a million soldiers, how exactly did anyone expect Iran simply to surrender?

One of the most disconcerting aspects of this war has been the relative failure of the American military when faced with weapons that will define the 21st century: drones and missiles. Reports of damaged bases, lost aircraft and multimillion-dollar drones, evacuated facilities, and strained air defenses should alarm every serious person in Washington.

One of our carriers, the $13 billion Gerald R. Ford, has been knocked out of commission for years because of an unexplained laundry fire that burned for 30 hours and almost sank the ship.

Whatever the final accounting shows, Iran and the war in Ukraine have made one thing clear: The future of warfare does not belong to giant military bases and aircraft carriers alone. It belongs increasingly to cheap, plentiful, highly effective drones.

The Shahed may go down as one of the most important military innovations of our time. It is effectively a low-cost cruise missile with a meaningful payload, long range, and a flight path that can be programmed in advance. It can be stored in a garage, launched from a truck, and produced at a fraction of the cost of the systems designed to stop it. And Iran has nearly 100,000 of them.

The age of drone warfare is here, and America looks flat-footed. Getting into an arrow war with the Persians was a mistake for Rome at Carrhae. We should have remembered the lesson.

Lies and disinformation can survive only so long against reality. We were never going to win this war. The Iranian people were never going to rise up and install a pro-LGBTQ democracy. Iran’s navy was never destroyed in any meaningful strategic sense. And whatever one believes about the nuclear question, airstrikes were never a substitute for a durable political settlement.

Now we are on the verge of a global economic crisis that could endanger some of our most important allies, including Japan and South Korea. Gulf Arab countries that spent the last 15 years stamping out radical Islamic movements and pledging trillions in economic partnerships with the United States have been ravaged by the conflict. When grocery prices explode, when fertilizer costs flow through to food prices, when filling up a car eats through family savings, ordinary Americans will ask obvious questions.

Who started this war? And why?

Iran will end the war bloodied but standing. It will retain enormous leverage over one of the world’s most important commercial arteries. It may enjoy windfall profits as oil prices rise, sanctions loosen, and frozen assets return. It may emerge with more, not less, power on the world stage.

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Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

That could have been avoided. But you cannot tweet your way to victory.

America has depleted its interceptor missiles. Billions of dollars in regional defense infrastructure will need rebuilding. Bases have been evacuated. Brave Americans have died. Who will pay to rebuild the system? Certainly not Arab states that watched Washington prioritize Israel’s security over theirs.

Iran remains. Its people remain. Its national identity remains. The need for diplomacy remains. The need for political solutions remains.

What has disappeared is the illusion that these realities could be bombed away.

We should have learned that lesson in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. We did not. Now we must take the deal, walk away, and admit that the American empire can no longer rule the world by force of will.

Thomas Jefferson warned us more than two centuries ago: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” That remains the sanest policy available.

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