“If you can get humor & seriousness at the same time, you’ve created a special little thing, and that’s what I’m looking for, because if you get pompous, you lose everything.” ~ Paul Simon

Interesting word, “serious” — on the one hand it implies that we must be earnest with our existence; that we must realize that we all only get one shot at this dance of life, and that we might do well to wake every day as if it were our last — to wake every day and go forth to “Love all-out”.

I think this side of “seriousness” serves its (our) Purpose indeed.

Of course, there is another side to being “serious” — and this is the side that tells us we can only have a Meaning-full life by struggling to be perfect; by striving to “make the world a better place”; by fighting to enforce “justice” and/or by putting on a dour face and persevering “to the bitter end” … Nobly intended, and yet I’m not so sure this attitude actually honors Life.

You see, to truly honor the precious gift of Life we have been given, we must indeed at some point set our selfishness aside and serve our Community — we must indeed release the desire for “personal wealth” in order to Give to others — we must quit building “healthy boundaries” in order to courageously Love our enemies.

AND YET, this is not a dour, “serious” business … This is a PRIVILEGE — this is the way to real Joy and lasting Contentment.

Indeed, “caring” for others because we “must” or because we are “supposed to” or even because it is the only way to attain true Happiness for ourselves (which it is) will actually prevent us from attaining that very success.

In-deed, the only way to truly honor life is to choose to serve others Joy-fully —

to choose to self-sacrifice Joy-fully —

to choose to forgive “mean people” Joy-fully …

and to choose to have lots of fun while doing so.

Once you set aside your fears & desires for self and happily “dive in” to Caring for others, LOVE is actually lots of fun …

So … got LOVE?

“Things won are done; Joy’s soul lies in the doing.” ~ William Shakespeare

Filed under: Wisdoms from the Journey by Scaughdt