Taking Life Less Seriously and Kicking Boredom’s Ass

(Photo by rev_adan Now that looks like a awesome time, even if I don’t know what they are doing)

This is no time to joke around; it’s time to get to work. Why do you always act like such a child? Act your age. Be more mature. Take things seriously in life. This is no time to be goofing off.

Ever heard some of these phrases muttered at you? Or at least heard someone yelling them at some drunken moron who is literally lying across the bar hitting on a girl, right in front of his girlfriend. I am sure we have all seen it from time to time; people love to take things very serious in life. Every time people go to work, it’s time to be serious and get focused on your important memo writing. When you go to the gym to squeeze in a workout you dawn a look of absolute focus and refuse to even make eye contact with another person in the gym unless they are territory challenging you ;). When you get up out of bed and go to the toilet to take a crap, it is very serious time that requires immense focus and dedication.

Loosen the f$%^ up

One of the biggest fallacies in human existence, in my opinion, is taking life way to seriously. Like every moment that you run across has to have some over dramatic life changing undertone to it that if you don’t handle it with the up-most of care your whole life could come crumbling down in front of you like a 2 year old faced with Lincoln logs.

Am I saying that you should be at a funeral and jumping around trying to make a most of that? No, of course not, there is a time and place for everything in life, but being serious 80% of the time is not the answer. So what exactly are the implications involved with chilling out and having a bit more fun? Let’s get this party started and find out.

So what exactly does it mean to take life less seriously? It’s exactly what it sounds like, this isn’t some calculus homework assignment that you paid the nerdiest kid in class to do for you.  You just need to learn to have more fun as much as possible.

See the fun side of the mundane and terribly boring

Now I know I have touched on this before, but this is so damn key it pains me to not see it happen on a day to day basis. You absolutely have to make the most of the situations that you would typically roll your eyes at and wonder when the hell it would be over. You know exactly what kind of situations I am talking about

1. Waiting in a doctor’s office
2. Trying not to staple your hand at work out of boredom
3. Sitting in your biology class
4. Trying to make out the awful billboard signs while stuck in traffic
5. Doing work around the house (especially cleaning your nasty bathroom)

You get the idea, the more mundane the activity, the more likely you are likely to totally loose your shit and get bored beyond belief. This boredom arises directly out of taking the activity way to seriously, even if you don’t feel as if you are.

What happens is that you assume that this activity is going to be a smudge on what could be a day filled with badassness and an extra heaping of awesomeness. Imagine for a moment that you are driving along, jamming out to that amazing new Britney Spears song that you secretly love but dare wouldn’t tell anyone for fear of being ripped limb from limb, and you run right into a traffic jam that makes LA look like Boise, Idaho. Instead of getting bored and frustrated, take a moment to make the moment fun, ask yourself, “How can I make this fun?” Maybe at that moment your hand turns into a microphone and you begin your own private concert (you turned off Britney because A) she lip syncs and is lame to sing B) ACDC is a much better choice). Anything goes, as long as you make that moment of utter seriousness a bit more fun.

It almost as if you look at a situation through the glass lens of a 5 year old, and make mountains out of molehills with your imagination (no ecstasy or hash required). That 5 year old would be sitting at his office chair at work, doing his weekly timesheets with the most carefree and fun attitude he possibly could. And while that child might draw a few dinosaurs and a huge battle between Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Pokemon on the memo, at least he got the work done and wasn’t bitching about it. All he did was take a moment that is boring and serious and made it a bit more interesting, and that’s all you need to do in order to kill that high level of normalcy in your life at the moment.

This write up could almost be a guide for how to make your life that much more interesting, and it is in a way. But I want you to be directly your focus to taking the seriousness out and putting the fun back in, because life is so much more tolerable and interesting that way. Plus as an added benefit, your stress will drop and you will likely develop a level of spontaneity in your daily life that you never thought possible. Before you know it, you will be running around your living room with a broom in your hand pretending to be a cross between Tom Cruise and Axel Rose. Trust me, that’s a good thing, certainly better than quietly sitting in the corner and acting your own age (damn I forgot how old you really are).

This new positive attempt you will be making at your day to day life will really be fun, exciting, embarrassing, and totally out of character for you (though maybe you’re already Jim Carry). Even if you think I am a total dumb-ass and couldn’t get you to let loose to save your life, give this a shot.

I want to hear about how you make your life less serious, so be sure to shoot me an email or leave a comment. If for whatever reason you can’t do this, or don’t want to because you are afraid or whatever BS reason you might have, please email me and I will take care of you like a mother holds her child (though slightly less touching unless there is money up front)

Keep it un-serious

Gabriel