Life in the world is no joke, and yet it is time for you to have some laughs. Life cannot be so serious as you take it. Even if it were, you have to take life more lightly. When you are so serious about life, when it is so utterly important, you put restraints on life and yourself. You order yourself around. You make demands of life that it's really better for you to let go of.

Have fun in life. Is that so hard to do? To have more fun in life, you just have to take life less seriously.

If living your life is the most serious thing you know, how can living life be fun for you and for the others around you?

The fun I speak of is not entertainment. I don't mean to say that to have fun you have to go to fairs and on rides. You don't have to be on the town in order to have fun.

Sit on the grass a while today. Do you remember what that was like? Lie on the grass, chew a blade, and look up at the sky. Does not the sky cover you with love? Sometimes you have to lie down on your back and look up at the sky horizontally in order to see it better. When did you last take the time to enjoy what is most enjoyable to you?

Roll in the grass. Roll down a hill. Pick berries. Do somersaults. Enjoy life. You can make no better contribution to it than to love it. Life does not like to be complained about. It likes to be enjoyed. It is for frolicking.

There are pleasures in life, so take pleasure in them. Let life be as a meal you eat. Smack your lips and enjoy every bite. Why not? Why not take pleasure in life?

You are very good, but you are not above living life with pleasure.

Today, when anyone asks you to do something, say, "With pleasure."

When you ask yourself to do something, say to yourself, "With pleasure! It will be my pleasure. Happy to do it."

Don't worry about being rash, and don't worry about being plodding. You will come to the perfect balance. Sometimes you rush in, and sometimes you wait too long. You will catch up to life without rushing and without plodding. Life isn't something you have to catch up with. You just have to step in, the same way you step into a dance, or the way you jump rope, or the way you so welcomingly enter a pond on a hot summer day. It doesn't matter so much how you enter. It just matters that you enter.

Do cartwheels in life. Live your life with aplomb. Live it with zeal. Live it as you would eat a wonderful meal set before you. Take a heaping plate. Take big bites. Fill your cup, drink it, smack your lips, and pour yourself another.

You have held back from life long enough in a desire to be safe. What is it you would protect yourself from? From Life? From you?

You would not seek safety unless you were concerned with danger. Concern for safety does not make you safer.

In terms of the relative, all of life is a risk. You are often afraid to take risk, even though it is inevitable. You will gamble at cards, but you think risks in life are too high and, therefore, dangerous.

Rather than think of risk and danger, think of the One Who holds you high above the fray.

Practical is never enough. It is practical to tie your shoes, but that goes without saying. Practical does not fill your heart. Perhaps you need red laces or to go barefoot and to be impractical as well. On the surface, what is practical about flying a kite? or wishing upon a star? or laughing?

Folding sheets is practical. Laundry is practical. Washing dishes is practical. All these things you know. Do them with love, and your practicality is holy.

But also place stars in your heart. Be rambunctious. Delight in delight for no reason at all.

If you could but treat your life as a poem, how wonderful life would be! A poem is what it is. Poems affect you. And with each poem you read, your grasp of life grows. Something has been said, and you have heard it.

Poetry names things for you, so when you read a poem, your heart says: "Oh, yes. This is how it is. This is what I would have said if I had thought of it. The poet has said it for me. He has said it in his own words, but his words are also mine. He is like the diviner of my sense of life on earth."

Like songs, life comes in many genres, many rhythms and many styles. All have their place. All serve. All cadences have merit. No one can say that one beat is superior to another. Have your favorites, but welcome the arrival of music in all its forms. You would not wish to be without it.