Life is too important to be taken seriously
Who would think that a novelist, poet, critic and more, born in Ireland in the year 1854, would share a sentence that would completely shift my paradigm of life? I was not the one to think so.
When digging a bit deeper into the quote “Life is too important to be taken seriously” known to be said by the late Oscar Wilde, I found a page called quoteinvestigator.com that find sources of quotes and explain them further. Well, little did I know that this was not the exact words of Oscar Wilde but a little re-do. But I still choose to give all of the coming credit to the late Mr. Wilde. Ok so this was a total sidenote, but anyhow.
The first time I read “Life is too important to be taken seriously”, quite frankly, I found it to be provoking. All these years, believing that seriousness was by far the best way to show gratitude and to seize the day in the best way possible. To me (and a vast majority of us), we see importance and seriousness as the same thing. We value life highly and therefore tend to take it in all seriousness. And here comes this Oscar Wilde dude and turns that paradigm completely around.
Growing up today we go from play to act. From laugh to strategizing. From being to striving. For what though, where is the striving taking us? Where is the end station of it all? We honestly forget to enjoy, to be and in that being feel gratitude. The more I look around, the more I think about it the more clear it becomes. If your life is all about striving and aiming and goals far ahead and showing no mercy in reaching all these ambitions, are you truly experiencing life? Here and now? Is it really to know the importance of life? Oh how I wish more people would see the magnitude of this.
The moment I started challenging myself and test the life lense of lightheartedness, everything changed. When I stopped taking the “I” and what the “I” does for a living so seriously, how the “I” identifies herself, what opinions the “I” has in all aspects, things actually really shifted. I was able to be more true to how I want to do things despite what peers or manager or anyone else in my life might think is good or bad. Because, in the end of the day, who cares? It is like actually being able to live by the saying that “It doesn’t matter what others think, what matters is what you think”. I started living for me, and no one else (well my kids & dog & hubby obviosuly but the happier I was, the happier they were :)).
Summarizing it all, we need to get over ourselves. We need to understand that we are not the center of the universe but rather a little and important part of something so much bigger than each and every one of us individually. Remove the man-made pressure. Life is not supposed to be filled with pressure. How are you supposed to enjoy it being stiff all the time? We have created the pressure and can in the same way remove it, by slowly understanding objectively that it is something we have received rather than something that comes from within from the starting point.
Dare to be more light in your steps. Dare to play more, find your inner kid. Dare to remember that we know little about everything and allow yourself to enjoy more, be more present. All super obvious but maybe not that easy. Practise. Dare to fail. Dare to test. Dare to put your well being first. Dare to live life for you and for no one else.
QUESTION – TIME
On a scale from 1 to 10, how seriously do you take your life? Does it do you good or bad?
Do you enjoy life more when you are relaxed and chill or when you are tense and believe everything is a matter of failure or success?