Why you should get serious about being silly

A few years ago, I travelled to Canada with a camera as I had heard about the World Rock, Paper Scissors Championships.

One of the things I really liked about going to the world rock paper scissors championships was meeting people who were serious about competing. I met some people who would travel all around the world to take part in this event in order to try and become a world champion.

To the uninitiated, rock paper scissors seems like a game based on chance, but I met professional players who would regularly get through to the latter stages of these championships. And then there were others who just wanted to become a world champion is something – anything – and rock paper scissors seemed like as good a place as any to start.

And it’s these people – the people who were serious about being silly – who had the biggest effect on me.

This notion of taking silliness seriously is something I’d really like to implement in my life more often. Recently I reconnected with juggling which is a totally useless that non-transferable skill and I loved it. I then went on to teach myself how to juggle fire and this experience took me back 25 years and reconnected me with my childhood where I learnt how to juggle clubs.

And whilst juggling is maybe not silly, it’s perhaps best described as frivolous. These experiences – ones where you don’t take yourself seriously – have been proven to have a huge positive effect on boosting your mood and reducing stress.

I recently read that an average four year old will laugh 300 times a day. In comparison, it takes the average 40 year old (someone about my age) two and half months to laugh that many times. Why do we lose our sense of humour as we get older? We need to lighten up. And one of the easiest and best ways to do this is to get serious about being silly.