Licking the Razor's Edge (2015)

The CONSEQUENCES of SERIOUSNESS
The problem with being overly serious is that you scar yourself as a person when you do
so … You start taking on the “weight of the world” and, in the process, stop being “the
real You”. Instead, you invest heavily in being the person you wish you were, or the
person think you should be, or the person that you think others wish you would become;
a person who makes very few mistakes, a person who is “successful”, a person who is a
“good citizen” – a person who can be “looked up to” and who “makes their mark”.
Of course, what happens when you do so is that you begin to resemble a mere robotic
shadow of your True Self. You become lost in an endless series of serious moments:
solving your own problems, solving other people’s problems, solving the problems of the
world. You become increasingly dour and depressed. A sense of resigned hopelessness
begins to eat away at your sensations of Joy and Wonderment. You resign yourself to
simply trying to “get through the day” … You feel hopeless to effectuate any significant
change for the better … You find the Beauty that constantly surrounds you to be
“normal” or “boring” … You become increasingly jaded and smug and negative; more &
more critical and unmotivated and glum.
Fortunately, there is an effective way out of this self-made prison. While I will be
sharing some specific tips on how you can free your Self from the cage of seriousness in
the pages that follow, it is enough now for you to simply pause whenever you are feeling
grim or upset or depressed or angry or worried … to pause just long enough to remember
that a Meaning-full life is not about “being successful” or accumulating “wealth” or even
“being happy”.
*It is enough to take one deep breath and smile.
*It is enough to remember that, despite all your trials & difficulties, your life is filled
with Beauty and that you are alive and surrounded by the same.
*It is enough to remember that a truly Meaning-full life is simply about this one moment
and what you choose to do with it; that we are not here to “fix anything” or to “save the
world” – but that we are here to simply Care for others, and to do so simply in just this
one instant.
*It is enough to remember that everything you chose to do DOES make a difference.
*And finally, it is enough for us to remember that we are not worry about whether or not
our small acts of Kindness prove “effective”, or even whether or not they are received by
others at all. We are simply here to do the small amount of selfless good that we can do
in each moment we have been given to do them -- and then we are here to let those
moments go as we move on to those that follow.
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