Stop Being That Serious In Life

It took me some time to realize all this, but this week it hit me, and they’ve been right.

In my past 32 years, I’ve heard a few times one of these sentences: “you’re not fun” (thanks sis!), or “are you always taking everything so serious?!” (from school to house chores and even at work I’ve heard this). I’m usually an energetic, positive person, and I’d evaluate that I smile and laugh often. I thought that indicated that I am not serious, or am I ?!

But now I see it - I’ve been taking so damn seriously so many (tiny) things in life that I almost can’t set aside things which I can let fall apart versus things that are indeed important. I’ve been almost strict with myself, making and following plans in life for most of the things and rarely letting myself just be and experience spontaneous moments of life. While having a plan can definitely reduce some sort of uncertainty of the future, or so we think, it can also make us miss so many things in life.

Sometimes you just experience something you’ve never experienced before, something that proves to you that as much as you want and try to have things in control, in alignment with your plan, life doesn’t take you seriously, or rather pushes you to not take life too seriously and just let some things be.

After this week, I know, or I rather feel it now - life is a beautiful dance. But I have been a very strict, rigid, almost controlling partner, often missing out on the living part of life.

And if you need them too, here are 5 reminders of why we should stop taking life so seriously:

1. Cliché but true, remember your own mortality.

This is what stops me from the agony of any anxious, extremely stressful moment - I remember my own mortality, of the fact that I only get this one life, and while hard to admit, most of the things that stress me are not worth the amount of energy I pour in.

And here’s a mindset I’m trying to include to leave this all super duper seriousness behind and remind myself that lift is so unique but short: the 1/5 year rule. When stressed, or you have a negative thought, pause and ask yourself if what you’re worried about will matter in 1 year. If the answer is yes, ask the same but now use the 5 years timeframe. If the answer is still yes, it could mean that you are indeed dealing with an important aspect or thing that would definitely need your energy, but if your answer is no, or even if you have the slightest impression that it’s not a full yes, give yourself 5 minutes to stress about it and then move on.

2. Serious people are not that fun to be around.

Let’s be honest, who likes to be around a super demanding intense person, always taking things so seriously - eventually not only on themselves, but on those around them too?!

While I see myself being on so many occasions one of those people, I need again to admit that likely nobody wants that sort of energy around them. I’d rather be around people capable of laughing at themselves, looking at life in a light, easy way rather than stressed out, drained by all the productivity hacks they need to nail to not miss out on life, overthinking their problems and keeping up a very GOOD attitude to fit and check as much as possible all the socially imposed norms. When we are overwhelmed, stressed, always trying to be in control, for sure we don’t have much energy to be friendly.

Have a think about it and see where in your life you might be doing just that.

3. You always feel the need to explain yourself to people.

This is linked to insecurities, but if we need to defend our choices, apologizing for what we like, say, enjoy or not like, say, or enjoy, in my opinion, this is strong evidence that we take most of the things in life damn seriously.

And that’s because we can’t allow ourselves to just be.

Because we’re fearing failure, judgment, because we don’t even have what it takes to sometimes laugh at ourselves.

Likely you’ve always followed the rules - from those imposed by society up to the level where you read a productivity book and start applying, or even imposing those rules to yourself without even questioning whether the system works for you or not.

I’ve observed myself in this trap a lot and one very recent example is when I started writing on this blog, but even more when I started publishing on YT. How dare I, a "senior professional", be a “YouTube content creator”?! Obviously, that was not even necessarily what most people think - we are all too absorbed by our own selves to have time to think of others - but I found myself on multiple occasions explaining myself. Even last week I had a slight moment when I caught myself doing so. And the fun fact is that I don’t even know what I’m doing here, it’s just a creative process I immerse myself in, and I know it brings me joy. But if that’s the case, why do I need to justify and explain my actions?!

Food for thought for yourself too; maybe you have your own projects, habits, passions, interests where you feel you need to explain yourself to people. If so, maybe you shouldn’t take things so seriously and remind yourself that nobody really cares. And rather live a bit more freely, a bit more playful, a bit more freestyle and outside imposed norms.

4. You rarely give yourself time to unwind, dance, joke, play, be silly.

Hi, I’m Luciana, and for sooo long, I’ve tried optimizing my life for efficiency to the point where I became inefficient at living life.

In all seriousness now, this demand for finding pockets of time to be productive, doing something all the time, jumping from one task to another is a vibe killer. It’s a recipe for emptiness and burnout.

While you might say that you’re super passionate about all that productivity and planning every moment of your day and life, the human body can only take so much, and that behavior is a steady trend towards a place where quality begins to decline.

An engine can’t really function non-stop without heating up.

There’s more to life than just smashing tasks on all sides of your life - personal and professional.

How about taking some minutes to listen to some jokes to remember that life can be fun?

How about being a silly mess for a bit?

When I was a teenager and up to Uni, I remember playing music and dancing in the house while helping with the house chores. I can’t really remember the moment when I took 3 mins of the “seriousness” of cleaning nowadays to just be silly and dance around like nobody would see me.

Let yourself be free to create, relax, enjoy stuff without the pressure that you always have to produce a tangible output.

2. Everyone has ‘stuff’ going on in their life.

However, that doesn’t justify taking everything so seriously.

You, me, we are not the only ones with whatever life is throwing at us. But if you’re like me, you’ll make a serious case out of anything and everything.

How about we drop the ball for a second and don’t let that “stuff” which is going on in our life take over? The “stuff” is not even the problem, rather it’s our thinking of the problem that sucks the energy out of us, imposes a serious tone, and the “I don’t have time for this” vibe.

Thinking negatively has not helped anyone, and we should remind ourselves that carrying all our “stuff” and seeing only the bad part of it won’t serve us. People who are less negative about the things going on in their life are more likely to seize opportunities when they present themselves.

Plus, we are a vibe killer for those around us when we keep moaning and complaining about the stuff in our life as if nobody else has them.

I believe life was never intended to be taken so seriously. But we are a bit slow to learn that truth - take yourself lightly, have a good laugh or two, and remember that childlike excitement for life is available to us anytime we want, we just need to learn again to embrace it.

That’s it for this note, see you next week,

Luciana