Celebrate good times, come on!

I tend to take myself way too seriously.

Don’t get me wrong: I love a good time.

However, somewhere along the line (I think in high school), I became convinced that fun without purpose was somehow a lesser-than form of enjoyment. A couple of years ago, if you were to have called me a Debbie-downer, a party pooper, or a goodie-two-shoes, I would have begged to differ. But you would have been right.

My good intentions to infuse life with meaningful moments and purpose made me controlling, stressed-out and worried that I was failing when an experience didn’t live up to my self-righteous expectations.

That makes me sound like a total loser, I know. Let me assure you that I have my moments of fleeting exuberance; joy, even.

However, life is too short to be lived as a vivacious control freak.

What I’m learning is that sometimes, you go into something expecting to enjoy yourself, and you get something meaningful along the way. Finding the purpose in life is a lot like the cupcake I ate today for my friend’s birthday. It was vanilla, with Oreo cookie crumbles on top. When I bit into it, I was pleasantly surprised to find an entire Oreo in the center of the cupcake (you know you’d be excited too!) You have to eat the cupcake to find the hidden surprises.

OK, that was a lame metaphor. Allow me to defer to the incomparable Henry David Thoreau. I love the way he puts it:

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life… to put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die discover that I had not lived.”

When we pursue what is beautiful, what is genuinely good and what is worth celebrating, I think that before long, we’ll be surprised to find we’ve stumbled right into the meaning we were searching for. (At least at this point, I’m not really sure as to whether we can create any meaning on our own anyway).

I long to delve into life with celebration, starting with a few small things…

Flailing my arms to Florence and the Machine.

Smiling at strangers.

Giving flowers to a friend on her birthday.

And eating more cupcakes.