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About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write.
Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground.
 
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Daily Cascade #1095799 added August 23, 2025 at 12:24pm
Restrictions: None
Seriously? No kidding?
Prompt: The phrase "Don't take life too seriously; you'll never get out of it alive" is a quote attributed to the American writer Elbert Hubbard. What do you think Mr. Hubbard meant? Are you guilty of taking yourself too seriously?
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If I am understanding this quote somewhat, I might have been guilty of taking myself too seriously, I guess, at a much earlier age. Not anymore, though. That it drains a person should be the number one reason.
I now think taking oneself too seriously is a disservice to life. It makes us blind to the facts and reasons of our existence.
This quote, however, is a tongue in cheek one. We all know we'll never get out of life alive. I guess Mr. Hubbard liked cuteness no matter how serious the subject he was commenting about.
So I checked him up, just a tad. I found some disconnect in his ways and thinking, however done with much honor and good will. Plus, the sites that write about him still praise him to high heaven. I found out, he, who said this quote, is also the guy who said, "I am not Elijah but I am something just as good. I am Pericles – with a Socratic bias." Wow!
So I said to myself, "Look who is taking himself too seriously!" But then, we're all human and we are allowed to contradict ourselves. As such, humility and bragging are the two opposite poles on the same existence.
In spite of all that, let me take a closer look at the quote. Taking oneself too seriously, I believe, has to be a flaw. It is like mixing up one's identity with one's performance, opinions, and status, wrongly or rightly perceived or not. Such a person is unable to laugh at his own quirks, mistakes, and foolishness. As for me, I laugh at myself all the time. Maybe old age and its follies help with that, also. If I were taking myself too seriously, my spilled coffee wouldn't be just a silly accident, but a testament to my clumsiness. Come to think of it, that idea of berating myself for my clumsiness would show a fragile ego.
Why foster an inflated sense of one's own importance, then! After all, after we leave this earth, who's going to remember our greatness! Even those who are remembered long after they're gone are subject to be forgotten millenniums later.
As for me, I certainly don't need that pressure to be perfect, to be right, to control every outcome, and keep a spotless image. That kind of a self-image belongs only to God!
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