Taking Things Lightly

I remember the particular mindset I had at the beginning of the year. I remember that, when asked to give a piece of advice to my future grandchildren, I said “don’t take life too seriously.”

When I first said it I was unsure of myself. I remember thinking that I didn’t truly believe it, even though I might’ve defended that idea to the death. I think that was indicative of who I was at the time. I didn’t really know who I was. I knew I loved music but what that love meant was, fuzzy.

At the same time I knew why I was saying that. It was the beginning of senior year and everyone around me, including me, was stressed about college applications, a very important, not-to-be-taken-lightly step in our lives. At the time I was so desperate to feel different. I wanted to be the “chill” guy, the one who almost never stresses about anything yet somehow is always doing just well enough to get by according to his own standards. I think it was this “chill” mentality that led me to think that I shouldn’t take life too seriously. Because, at least from my perspective, everyone else was, so I shouldn’t.

This led me down the rabbit hole of not doing enough work or being a little too okay with just a few more minutes of YouTube. At a certain point I realized that my mentality was less along the mindset of “don’t take life too seriously” and more along the lines of ambivalence, only working, even on things I love, because that’s what I should do and not because I want to.

This class did help me change that mindset. I’ve always resonated with The Power of Meaning and the whole concept of the pillars of meaning. It was knowing these foundations and what to build up more and what not to focus on as much made me appreciate life and it’s struggles a lot more. I’ve come to realize that one of the big reasons I fell into the trap I did was that I felt it didn’t have meaning. And by finding more meaning in life, both in the work I once found meaningless but also in my own personal endeavors, I began to grow as a person.

Over the course of the year I have come to re-evaluate my piece of advice. Honestly, it’s not terrible advice. At least not if you have the right mindset. Instead of reframing the whole thing, because personally I don’t think it needs to be, an addendum should be added. I think that the new piece of advice I would give is “don’t take life too seriously. But do take the time to suffer in the meaningless. That being said, appreciate life around you. Take the time to build up the pillars of meaning, storytelling, belonging, purpose, and transcendence. Take time for yourself. And, most importantly, be serious when you need to be. But other than that, yeah, don’t take life too seriously.”