I know there are a lot of serious people here. I admire your conviction and am saddened for your loss. Being serious requires focus, which means filtering out the noise. What are the noises in your life?

You can certainly list the noises you currently rub up against. However, too many times we label something noise, filter it out and then never re-examine our choice. What are the filters you inherited and have never, ever examined? What are the filters you have constructed and have never re-examined? Do these filters still serve you?

It hurts to see people serious themselves out on to the end of the branch until it breaks. I’ve known too many people serious about their careers right up to the day they are let go, get cancer, get indicted or I send their spouse flowers.

More often, I talk with those who know they are hanging out on a branch, knowing how it will end and not able to see a way to avoid it.

Think of life like a set of those horizontal ladder bars on the playground and your stopped half way. The first step to getting across is to start swinging until you can reach out and grab the next rung. What is it that you would reach for?

Usually by the time we are in conversation, you aren’t just hanging there you are squirming, kicking and losing your grip. It is hard to find the rhythm of swinging while this is going on, so the first step is to settle down, quiet down.

So take a day, half day, an hour or even 15 minutes. Take a walk, a hike, a drive, get coffee, go fishing and ask your ‘serious self’ the questions in this post. There is no need to decide what the answers mean, jump to conclusions or take action.

Repeat this a few times and themes of what is brewing inside will emerge. These aspects of you have no room in the serious self you’ve created. Identifying theses aspects is the beginning of working through the status quo and finding a new rhythm.

May your life go well.