What's wrong with being serious? / Is my position invalidating my friends?

Dear Annie: I'd like to add my encouragement to "Stuck in Adulthood," who says he is too serious, I am 16 and serious and, yes I am always told to "lighten up." What's wrong with being serious? Why can't people say, "Look at that mature teen getting a head start on life?" All my uncles were serious as teens, and now they are engineers, businessmen, professional musicians and doctors. All my aunts love them. My dad was serious, too, and my parents have a wonderful relationship. It makes me feel better to know I am not the only one. —Blessed With Premature Adulthood, Leona Valley, Calif.

Annie's Reply:

Dear Leona: Thanks for writing. We can tell by your letter that you are indeed a mature teen getting a head start in life. Good for you. —Annie

Gabby's Reply:

Hi Leona: There is a problem-solving exercise in which you must be willing to communicate from the point of view that you are causing (intending) what another says to you. Let's say it's the genius in you that unconsciously keeps setting it up for others to tell you that you are too serious. What do you suppose you have been up to that you've been setting up your friends to tell you to lighten up? To invalidate them, to make them wrong? Not! My sense is that you are shut down emotionally and that you don't know it—with few, if any, moments of joy throughout the day.* And, you have collected a bunch of reasons and justifications so as to be right that "they" are wrong. A well-adjusted healthy person, one who is whole and complete, flows in and out of the entire range of human emotions throughout the day, often during a given conversation. That you've been driven to write about such innocuous comments by others indicates that you are incomplete about something. Whatever you do, do not try to lighten up (keep reading).

How we communicate, verbally, non-verbally, physically, and psychically—all that emanates from us—including our unconscious intentions, have an effect on others, especially their aliveness. It's easy to see with store clerks. The checkout process can be pleasant and uplifting or, an unhappy grouchy clerk can actually detract from your aliveness, sapping your very energy. For example: On a scale of 1 - 10 if you stood in the checkout-line experiencing being 7 in terms of feeling quite good, but as you left the store you noticed that you had dropped down to 5 on the aliveness scale, it could suggest that you had been at effect of the more sullen/serious clerk and had been sucked down to his/her level of aliveness. BTW: Leaving one at the same level supports mediocrity and accelerates entropy.

I recommend service. Serving others gives my sometimes unconscious mind a proactive activity.  Sometimes what service looks like is adding to the aliveness of others, such as saying, to a clerk who has become stuck in upset, "Looks like you're having a bad day." Most always this wakes the clerk up. It's a simple acknowledgement. It doesn't make them wrong and gives all but the most determined dramatists space to transform themselves right before your eyes. If it doesn't work after a few visits to the store I tell the manager, "It looks like ____ (name of the clerk) is not enjoying his/her job." This communication wakes up the manager. A grumpy clerk always mirrors a manager's integrity, specifically, his/her leadership-communication skills. Some people unconsciously use their leadership-communication skills to thwart others; it's usually done non-verbally.

Using the clerk example, it could be said that the clerk communicated to me, non-verbally and unconsciously of course, "I'm stuck. Can you help me? I don't mean to be grumpy. I'm dramatizing an upset that I don't know how to clear. I don't want to detract from your aliveness but at the moment I'm doing the best I can, and don't know how to get out of upset—or seriousness, or whatever." And the biggie, "I'm not being supervised correctly."

There's a communication workshop exercise in which you must demonstrate to the person sitting opposite you that you have access to full self-expression. You are instructed to communicate the various emotions, happiness, anger, love, covert hostility, grief, apathy, joy, etc. by reading sentences from a script using only your voice (actually it's via intention), no facial expressions (one looks like a zombie during this exercise). In a weekend-long communication workshop there are always participants who, at first, can't communicate one or more emotions. That is to say, they have become stuck. They simply can't flow in and out of the entire range of human emotions throughout a given conversation. There are various barriers to full self-expression, quite often a barrier is a position, an unconscious position, such as, "serious is good, or right," or, "boring is bad and therefore wrong." Or, "My mother was pathetically sad, so I am not going to grow up to be like her" in which case the person develops a "happy act," which unbeknownst to them comes across as phony and insincere.

Your position is obviously having an effect on those with whom you relate. You set up your friends to remind you to "lighten up" and, instead of thanking them, you arrogantly and self-righteously invalidate and ignore their support. The way in which you relate (your leadership-communication skills) cause others to feel uncomfortable, and I suspect, less-than. Your non-verbalized self-righteous position about being one of the few who is smart enough to want to get a head start comes across as holier than thou.  It doesn't feel good. It detracts from the aliveness of others.  It's a way to make others wrong; it is in fact, covert abuse.

Now here's my advice: Keep doing it. Keep acting serious, only even more so. Really get into it. Pretend you're an actress whose character is ten times more serious than you are. Amongst everyone, dramatize it to your fullest ability. Why, you ask, would I advise you to keep invalidating your friends and justifying your dour, intimidating, energy-sapping countenance? It's because presently you don't have any choice in the matter. Your attachment to your relatives is such that you are now emulating them. You simply can't yet conceive that it's possible to be on-purpose in life and radiate light-hearted happiness. You are programmed to have a "serious looking act." The advice you can be trusted to act upon is to observe yourself. Through observation you will begin to have choices. In other words, if your intention is to add to the aliveness of others then the process of uplifting others will uplift you. When you serve you are served.

BTW: You are absolutely right; I acknowledged you for getting a head start on life. You are a teacher's ideal student; you validate your teachers. That being said, if you were my student I'd notice that there is something I have not acknowledged you for, and so I might say, "By the way, I applaud your serious approach to studying however, I don't see much evidence of happiness, or friendliness, or laughter or joy. Is it me?" "No?" "What's going on for you about that?" Such a conversation would be transformational.

Another BTW: If you were my daughter I'd advise you to take a year-long vacation to Samoa. It would allow you to get back to choice about your future. Presently you're stuck in several decisions. You'd get a sense of what life was like before money. Many Western aspirations (careers, occupations, jobs) simple don't produce joy.

Childhood and teenage years do have their purpose. Trying to act as an adult when you're supposed to be clumsy, uncomfortable and awkward defeats the brilliant purpose of youth. Children who were forced to be the grownup, the parent for their siblings (due to the absence of the mother), or who was submitted daily to the effects of dysfunctional parents, sometimes have a difficult time later in life because they missed out on childhood. They discover that they have not learned to play, so, later as a parent, some are uncomfortable sitting on the floor, for any length of time, playing "time wasting games" with their own children. The dialogue in the vast majority of movie's with parent-child reunions includes, "You never spent time with me."

How often have you found yourself giggling in uproarious laughter with teen peers at a pajama party? Where else is one supposed to learn to giggle at stupid remarks and to learn to create stupid giggle-worthy remarks? Spontaneity is a communication skill that helps tremendously. High school clubs, and eventually college sororities (such as at Wellesley), are partly about social bonding through irresponsible giggly frivolous conversations, testing to see what works; it's where one learns to not automatically react negatively to feedback/criticism. It's where you give others permission to give you the kinds of feedback that most others think but withhold from you; the kinds of feedback about your presentation, the thoughts that are essential to growth and maturity. Most importantly, it's where one discovers that they are everyone. Your rage is not that far underneath your nice act. Friends will say to an investigator, "I don't understand why she . . . , she was so nice, so stable, so serious." BTW: Later in life you're going to need to be comfortable with non-serious employees as you try to enroll them in supporting a project of yours. Their values, language and vocabulary are different.

It will work to discuss this subject matter with others, especially your parents. Show them this post. Find yourself a friend and talk about this with them. —With aloha, Gabby

Re: "Blessed." Religious expressions used outside your family and among fellow believers** can be interpreted as "holier than thou." Sometimes religious words are used as an unconscious identifier (I'm one of the good, smart, righteous ones, are you?) or as a covert proselytizing communication; however, it often serves as a separator, it creates us/them. It most always has the effect of shutting down communication. At other times it's appreciated or at least accepted. It all depends upon where the person who says it is coming from. Your "blessed" comes from self-righteousness, it didn't feel good. The test for abuse is to ask the recipient, "How did that feel?"

* "Blessed" —If you experience moments of joyous love throughout the day, then disregard my reply—keep doing what you've been doing.

** "family" —If even one person in a conversation is not of your faith, or is an atheist, or agnostic then religious words/phrases could cause upset/discomfort (abuse).

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Last edited 7/20/22

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