Motivation

Taking Things Seriously

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Does taking things seriously mean you need to be solemn, grave, grim, stern, humorless, and stony-faced? No, and in fact we would argue just the opposite, that if by taking things seriously what is meant is doing the very best you can in order to develop yourself as far as possible in the area you’re pursuing then a joyful, light, free attitude is most conducive to the process while the serious attitude as defined above will keep you from reaching your full potential, not to mention make you more likely to quit.

It’s joyless people who project their own grim outlooks onto learners, chastising and punishing them for what they perceive as frivolous attitudes. For the joyless, being serious about something precludes having fun while doing it. How could it be otherwise when they are incapable of having fun themselves.

Can you be wholehearted, genuine, resolute, committed, and determined while concurrently cultivating a joyful, light, and free attitude? Yes! Don’t let the joyless people convince you otherwise. They’re determined to suck the fun out of the developmental process of others in order to force the external world to align with their own skewed internal realities. In our existential system joy is an absolutely essential element of taking things seriously.

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