Why You Should Stop Taking Life so Seriously

Life is easier to enjoy when you don’t stress about trivialities

People spend too much of their time on trivialities that are not worth the attention they’re given.

They worry about what people think about them, what the newest gossip is, how many likes they get on their Facebook posts, and get upset that their neighbour’s grass is greener.

They get fixated on those things because it’s easy to keep their focus on stuff that gives them a certain high, rather than paying attention to things that are more important and fulfilling.

The result of taking everything so seriously, even themselves, is that they end up feeling stressful and angry about circumstances that have no significant meaning in their lives.

They live with the fear of getting judged and ridiculed for their behaviour, for making mistakes, for going after what they want. They feel the need to be perfect to please everyone, afraid to let anyone down so they end up living their lives as an endless performance.

Choosing What to Care About

To stop taking life so seriously doesn’t mean that you start taking everything for granted and become indifferent towards life’s circumstances.

It’s to choose what you want to be serious about, what is meaningful enough to you, and shift your attention and effort onto that instead. It’s taking seriously what you can control and stop excessively stressing about things that you can’t.

“It is not so important to be serious as it is to be serious about the important things.” ~ Robert M. Hutchins

Life becomes simpler when we stop believing that the world revolves around us. We can’t expect everything to be pleasurable all the time, but we can take everything that comes our way with a dose of humour.

Sometimes we are so scared to ask for a promotion or afraid to ask someone out on a date because we feel we aren’t good enough and know we will get no for an answer. We don’t even want to try because it’s easier to accept a lie than being confronted by the truth.

We are terrified to find out that what we don’t like about ourselves will be confirmed through others’ words or actions.

When we stop taking everything so seriously we become more prone to accepting our imperfections and that is the first step towards self-improvement.

We stop denying that our flaws exist, and face reality for what it is in order to improve. That way we are more inclined to see challenges as opportunities and not threats.

The thing is, when we are excessively worried about insignificant matters, we forget to live.

“Take your work seriously but never take yourself seriously and do not take what happens either to yourself or your work seriously.” ~ Booth Tarkington

What Happens When You Stop Taking Everything So Seriously

You start paying attention to things that actually matter. You are able to focus on your career, your family, your own improvement. Trivialities don’t get you upset anymore.

You stop stressing about everything and start enjoying the little things. That’s what life is all about.

You go for opportunities that you’ve always wanted to try and allow yourself to have fun in the process. You know that setbacks only help you grow.

You can turn dull moments into fun ones by applying game mechanics to your life. In games you know you can win, which makes you very positive about your chances if you persist; so you stay optimistic and you keep trying. In real life, you can reframe problems as challenges.

Optimism and humour keep you open-minded towards success and you are more creative, and inspired to take action. Feeling stressed and having the need to control everything only makes things worse.

In Conclusion

Life is easier to enjoy when we stop taking everything so seriously. Not everything in life comes as we expect, there will be moments that will suck, and that’s perfectly fine. We can use these moments to learn and to improve ourselves.

When you choose to divert your focus onto things that you actually care about, you’ll make yourself a lot happier; you’ll appreciate life more and make yourself a more cheerful person to be around.

And when you stop expecting that everything in life should be as you thought it would, you’ll feel the weight off your shoulders, you’ll stop deceiving yourself that everything is supposed to be perfect, and you start directing your focus on developing self-knowledge and improving your life, one step at a time.

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