No pressure, have fun. It's all pointless anyway
I heard a quote recently, “Don’t take life so seriously, no one gets out alive”. I’ve heard it 100 times before but this time it resonated with me. Lately, while watching my friends and myself grow into young adults I’ve noticed a change in our attitude from when we were younger. We’re no longer as driven by our long term goals, we have responsibilities in the present, and if that means sacrificing what we want in the long term so we can live easier in the present, that’s what we’ll do. We settle into a secure routines, maybe your job sucks but it pays the bill, or maybe you want to move away but that's too much effort.
Let’s put your life into perspective for a moment. You’re just one human alive today among another 7 billion other humans and the 100s of billions of humans that came before that. The planet you live on is just a spec compared to the size of the solar system, and even the solar system is a spec when compared to the Milky Way. Even the size of the Milky Way is irrelevant when compared to the vastness of the universe. Your freewill, it’s probably an illusion and it’s pretty likely that the universe you’re in is just one massive simulation.
It can be a little unnerving how our human problems seem so trivial when compared to the scope of the universe, but the triviality of our lives can be used to empower our actions. Take a typical scenario where you might feel nervous about making a big decision in life, changing jobs for example. We can feel anxiety because it could be a change for the worse. We might not get on with the employees or it could be more stressful. This fear of change often stops us getting want we really want. During situations like this it can be comforting to remind ourselves of the real perspective of the situation. It’s completely meaningless in the scope of larger scope of things so really we shouldn't be worrying so much and just get on with it, what's the worse that can happen?
It’s not just big decisions this type of thinking can be useful to consider. It’s also helpful for coping with stressful situations. We've all been in situations where we want to do something but we've decided otherwise because of our own self-doubt. Think of a great singer that's too frightened to sing on stage. Here it’s helpful to take a step back and ask yourself, in the larger scope of things does it really matter?
Of course you should still stay rational about all the decisions and actions you make. Just keep in mind that we have little reason to take them so seriously letting our responsibilities and fears overwhelm us, leaving little to no room for our personal happiness. It’s much more important for us to take a few risks and have fun living a life as close to our dreams as we can, even if that means doing a things that are a little frightening from time to time.
Have fun and try not to waste your future worrying about what people think of you, panicking about making the perfect decisions, or being a slave to responsibility. In quite a genuine way the epic scale of the universe we live in is really just its way of saying to us, “no pressure, have fun. It’s all pointless anyway”.
Author
Hello, I'm Lee.I'm a developer from the UK who writes about technology and startups. Here you'll find articles and tutorials about things that interest me. If you want to hire me or know more about me head over to my about me page
Social Links
