Footprint August 2007

When the fun stops it is time to move on

My favourite thing is to go where I have never been. Meeting people with different backgrounds, languages or habits to me, discover places I didn’t even know existed or finding myself in situations where “normal” people never end up. Some of us just have to find out what is around the corner. What if there is something that we would totally miss out if we didn’t go? We who can’t live with that fact usually end up with a long, interesting and kind of unstructured CV. The moving spirit for me is always growth, exploration and the pure joy of moving towards the unknown. Life is a bit like standing still in an escalator that moves downwards all the time. If we don’t walk – make mistakes, learn new things, find out more about ourselves – we automatically stagnate and start moving backwards. We have to continue walking and we have to be honest with ourselves about when our escalator starts moving backwards.

The world is plagued with enough negative people. We need tons of positive dudes who like to zero in on what is right with the world. Who can’t escape the conviction that it is great to be alive, that work is supposed to be fun and that no matter what the setbacks never loses their sense of humour. We lose many laughs if we’re not laughing at ourselves. When we see how funny we are we can also see how dear we are, perfect in our imperfectness. Laughter is like the human body wagging its tail. If something stops being fun, ask yourself why and if you can’t fix it, stop doing what you are doing. Life is way to short to do things that doesn’t make your heart sing out loud. What if you would find tons of new possibilities just by placing the fun at the top of your priority list? Have fun and both you and your business become attractive. Have fun and you will get those gorgeous laughter lines instead of the worried ones. Have fun and you have no idea what will happen – and when nothing is certain everything is possible.

People that keep stiff upper lips find that it is damn hard to smile. If we walk in the direction of fun we will eventually find it, if we want to find it. We have to put an effort into having a great life; it won’t just happen as we sit there watching our plants grow unless we don’t happen to get easily amused by plants growing. Usually there is no laughter without doing, so the shortest answer to most questions is doing. Do everything you long to do twice as often, twice as boldly and twice as openly. Do it for you. Free yourself from routines that don’t serve you anymore and just do it, whatever it means to you. When you get a chance – go for it and remember that humour is a proactive tool waiting to be used when reaching your goals.