Thursday, September 29, 2005

Taking life too seriously

Mark your calendars, folks. Because it took exactly 285,336 hours to determine that I take life far too seriously. The good news is that I have you, my faithful readers, to thank for this revelation.

I even think I saw an angelic light fall upon me, a la Touched by an Angel, when it hit me.

I've spent my life being the enforcer of truth and justice everywhere. Or at least truth. Or, at least, what I believe to be truth. (I've been known to be wrong a time or two.)

Anyhow, as I've been on this blogging journey so far, I am looking through a new set of eyes. Trying to find humor in life, you know? I'll admit, I've been working hard at this. But in the meantime, I think I have overcome a major obstacle here. And I will say, there is a lot of practical application to this realization.

I've been working quite hard with my second son to learn his letters. No matter how many times we went over the letters M, N, J, H, F, and D, he would mess them up again the next time. I sat down with him, pulled out the flash cards every night, quizzed him, made him write them out, made him say them over and over and over and over and...

Frankly, I was getting nowhere. But then, I decided to try something really wild and crazy. I decided to make learning his letters fun. I joked with him, made him act totally silly when he was getting upset, made myself act totally silly when I was getting upset, and just tried to get him to relax.

Will still spent a lot of time. But you know what? In the meantime, neither of us was ready to break into tears.

Hmm. I mean, really, how important is being able to read your letters? Okay. Kind of important. But still, not so important to forget about having some fun.

So, I vow that from now on, I won't take life so seriously. At least, not all the time.