Why So Serious?

Life is far too important to be taken seriously- Oscar Wilde


Some people don't take anything seriously.. others take everything too seriously.. and sometimes, its hard to get the right balance. Being not serious enough can turn your life into chaos, whereas too much can rob you of actually living..


However much I'd like to think otherwise, now and again I keep finding myself leaning more towards the latter... being too serious, and sometimes making 'mountains out of molehills'.. and I've asked myself why..

Have you noticed how kids never take things too seriously? Novel situations are more likley to evoke exitement, not fear. They try their best to make everything fun! I was walking up the Brecon Beacons the other day, and I walked past a family. There were three young boys and a beautiful little girl, and as I walked past them I watched how they played. They ran through the mud and puddles, chasing eachother and shrieking with laughter. They didn't care about their muddy clothes, they weren't worried about what I, or anybody else thought of them, they were just having fun.


It reminded me of how me and my brother Rhys used to play in those mountains when we went there as children, as I looked over the grass I could almost replay it like a video in my head. I could see us fighting with sticks, I could see Rhys shoving me into the nearby prickly bushes and laughing, me tripping him up into the mud, or him throwing a snowball at my face at point blank when it snowed.... all part of being siblings lol! :) And it just made me think back to when I was a kid... sometimes its easy to lose/forget that childlike sense of freedom and fun! Sometimes as we walk through life we pick up all these hang ups, issues, burdens. What is it about kids, that they turn everything into 'fun?' Does that childlike sense of fun become lost over the years? or is it just suppressed? Or is it robbed of us as we experience the hardships life can throw at us?



I say childlike because there's a big difference between being childlike and childish. We're not mean't to be childish, forget our responsibilities, throw tantrums when we don't get out own way etc... but I don't think there's anything wrong with being childlike. Sometimes its good to remember what it feels like to not put much emphasis on what people think, not to care too much about weather you're skinny/pretty enough, to not care if you get a bit dirty when you're out and about...


Isn't it odd how when we get to a certain age, its gradually stops..the climbing up trees, the playing with play dough, the 'making dens', the playing hide and seek/tag, or playing 'pretend'.. all seems to stop.. But does the desire stop? Quite possibly for some of us it does .. maybe I sound crazy but if I'm honest, I still wanna do some of those things sometimes! haha!



But no, we're 'grown ups' now.. people would look at us like we're crazy if we decided to roll down a hill, make a 'den' out of the bed sheets, play sword fights with sticks, or play on the swings..


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APhS2wDTIrw

( this is a little off the subject but a very funny clip of Dylan Moran, talking about the differences between adults and kids)

Its not even just the silly children games or anything for me.. sometimes I just find myself being too serious.. too worried about what people think, too worried incase I 'offend' someone, sometimes too serious about trying to be 'perfect' instead of just 'being', too precoccupied with the 'bigger' questions in life. But the key word we need here is 'balance.' We can't be careless - say what we want, act how we want etc.. and we can't (shouldn't) ignore the 'bigger' questions in life. Its all about balance..

Sometimes its easy for little anxieties and worries to hijack our brains and preoccupy them so much that we forget to just have fun.. forget to put things into perspective and just say.. 'in the big relm of things, what does this matter?' My dad made me laugh when we were talking on this subject once... he said he has a 'shit filter'... when he finds a few things worrying him he stops, considers them all, and asks himself if they're really worth worrying about - if they really matter in the wider picture.. all the rubbish he disregards and just gets on with it..
and I think thats actually a good idea.. because without realising it, we can get uptight and serious about things that are just not that important, we end up wasting precious time and energy.. so sometimes its good to just take a minute, pause.. and put our worries through the 'shit filter' and not take life so seriously lol!

( Please don't get me wrong here by the way and think I am belittling real serious issues.. there is of course a time to take certain things seriously)

So sometimes we may be feeling a bit down, maybe we're a little bit low on money( I know how that feels as a student lol ), maybe we're worrying about body image issues, exams, maybe we're lacking in confidence, maybe we worry that 'so and so' doesn't like us, maybe we did a bit of a 'faux pas' the other week... or perhaps we've been thinking too much about something. I'm a deep thinker.. love to reflect, but as crazy as it sounds there can come a point where thinking over something can become counter productive. If we dwell on certain things too much they can end up dragging you down, because they get magnified and put out of perspective. I suppose an example for me recently would be death. ( sorry if I seem like I'm being all morbid but I'm just trying to make a point) When my nan died, I began to think about it.


Thinking about it and coming to terms with it was good in a way.. I realised death was a part of life etc.. and it gave me the revelation of how its good to make the most of our lives 'cos we're not on this earth forever. But for a while before I came to terms with it it was counter productive.. I started to think 'what's the point?' etc and fear entered my heart. It seemed to be constantly in my mind. And it's those times you gotta tell yourself 'stop thinking about it so much'.. or maybe perhaps not so much stop the thinking but what you're thinking about.. but that's a whole other blog I think lol


So I guess all I'm trying to say is that sometimes in life we should just stop, check what kinda things we're worrying/thinking too much about, thank God for all our blessings and and ask ourselves... why so serious? If you can't give yourself a good reason then just let it go..





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU <--- Very good song :)

Cast all your anxiety on Him (God) because he cares for you - 1 Peter 5v7

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years - Abraham Lincoln
Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive - Elbert Hubbard