Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Taking it all a bit less seriously

Author:Paulo Gaspar
Posted:9/12/2000; 10:22:30 AM
Topic:fork
Msg #:21243 (In response to 21196)
Prev/Next:21242 / 21244

All the chances we overcome across life can only be explained trough PURE LUCK.

We all are just damn lucky to be here. It is just silly to think it was all under our control at any moment.

Besides going trough birth, all the participants of this forum are also damn lucky to be part of a very previleged minority. None of you is starving, all of you even have Internet access, right? Just because we were also damn lucky about the place of birth or something equally out of our own control.

And then we go trough life, guided only by our very unreliable perceptions of the world, misunderstanding things and making mistakes all the time... and still wanting to be taken seriously.

One thing that helps me being more tolerant with both me and others, is to remember that there is nothing realy as special about me as the fact that I have been so lucky up to now... and even that can stop at any moment without my agreement being considered at all.

I might be smart or stupid, nice or an asshole, but most of all I am just LUCKY. And so are you. There is nothing more transcendental about us than luck and none of us really controls that one.

I am lucky. I better enjoy it while it lasts.

This doesn't stop me from trying to improve my work and who I am in general, doesn't make me less enthusiastic defending my ideas, doesn't stop me from having an ego and does not stop that desire of being taken seriously...

I do all that because I enjoy doing it.

But when things don't work so well, I just try to remember how most things are out of my control, that I will never understand life anyway and that I am still being so lucky.

That also helps me to better listen to others, to find out when I am wrong and to say "I am sorry". Not taking myself too seriously helps me accepting my mistakes.

And about others mistakes... well, after all their limitations are on the same (high) order of magintude of my own ones.

May be at times we look big... but we are so small! As mentioned before, just barking and farting...


So, we better relax and have some fun,

Paulo Gaspar



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