Are You Forgetting This One Thing While Making Your Dent in the Universe?

What outcome are you looking for in exchange for your time and effort? Are you usually looking for a big result, some kind of payback?

There’s a lot of talk out there about adding value and making an impact. And most of it is just that… talk. You hear it at every turn. It’s all over your social media feeds. Is fun anywhere in the equation?

Just this morning, I read an email from our homeowners association president. He’s even caught up in the same thing, “I think it is important that we tackle things that will provide value / make an impact.” His heart is in the right place and it’s just an email to two people.

My only point is that adding value and making an impact, the singular goal of success junkies everywhere, has infiltrated every little crack and crevice in everyday life. Is that what we really want? Is it what we need?

Just to be clear… I’m guilty too. I admit that. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make your little dent in the universe. I think we all like to feel we have a purpose, a reason for being, and for being, well… us.

But here’s where I’m going to throw a disruptive idea into the mix and see if it increases any resting heart rates.

What if the value is having some fun? What if the impact is simply having a good time?

What do you think? Can we save some room for that?

I was just wondering over the weekend when the last time I had some serious fun. You know, the kind you have when no one is looking and when you’re not looking either to see if anyone cares.

It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? I’ll confess, it has for me.

Allow me to connect a couple of dots… the fun dot with the happiness dot.

Fun and happiness go hand-in-hand, right?

Albert Einstein had a Theory of Happiness in addition to his Theory of Relativity. I’m not sure if that’s what he called it or if that’s what someone else named it,  but here goes…

A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with ceaseless restlessness.” — Albert Einstein

According to NPR (October 2017), somebody recently did buy happiness. Albert Einstein’s theory of happiness sold at auction and somebody paid a cool $1.3 million for a single piece of paper.

The backstory is that he wrote this in 1922 just as he learned of his Nobel Prize in physics. He didn’t have money to tip a bellhop, so he wrote that advice on a slip of paper instead and gave it to him.

There’s a certain irony with a slip of paper touting the value of a modest life that would sell for $1.3 million.

At least one of us is missing the point entirely. And I don’t think it’s me. I’m the one getting the wisdom without reaching for my wallet.

And don’t miss this… you’re getting the same $1.3 million bonus simply for reading this far. How’s that for adding value? Where else could you find that kind of return on the internet today?

[I learned this on Hugh MacLeod’s blog on @gapingvoid. He does daily short posts of wisdom and thought along with one of his very unique and unusual cartoon drawings. You can find it here.]

But that’s not all. Here’s another gem I found on the internet. This one is from a guy named Jim. He is a real human and a stand-up guy. I don’t know him well at all, but he’s a “friend” on Facebook. Above all, I think Jim got this one right…

Life is short my friends. Hug the people you love. Make a renewed commitment to not take life so seriously and have more fun.” — Jim a “friend” on Facebook

Be Untucked.

 

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