Better have a little fun
You ain’t gonna live forever
So while you’re young and gay, still okay
Have a little fun
Why should you work and save and save?
Life is full of ifs and buts
Even the squirrels save and save
And what have they got? Nuts!
— Elaine Stritch, Are You Having Any Fun?

Leave it to Volkswagen to revive an old gem from the music catalog. This song plays in one of there new commercials, and credit goes where it’s due. I hadn’t found this one previously on my own. It just goes to show that there is so much magic out there recorded and just awaiting discovery. Go find it already! Even if it shows up in a car commercial.

It seems frivolous at this moment to remind everyone to have a little fun. We know the state of the world. We have a lot of work to do to swing the pendulum towards a single global story (to borrow a phrase from Yuval Noah Harari). We may never get there in our lifetime, which is a stunning realization for someone who watched the Berlin Wall torn down. But here we are. And it all ought to be taken very, very seriously.

But while forces out of our control pivot and wrestle for our attention, our old friend Time keeps flying rapidly along whispering “tempus fugit” in our ear. We ignore the call at our peril. The ifs and buts will always be there to defer our hopes and dreams. Our time is now. Do something meaningful with these days.

And what is meaningful for one doesn’t mean a lick to someone else. There’s a part of us that wants nothing more than to be floating in a tropical paradise and turning off the news of the world. There’s a part of us that wants to produce something significant in our days—be it art or a career or time we’ll never get back with people we care about. Life is balance, we tell ourselves. We can’t have our cake and eat it too…

The thing is, we can’t eat the whole cake, but we can have our share of it. We can make the most of the day in a balanced, productive way that carries us forward towards the essential few that matter more than all the rest. Not to work ourselves to an early grave, or to miss out on moments we’ll never get back with loved ones who quietly need us present in their lives, but to find some measure of balance in each day that gives us the best of both. And discovering that we can have a little fun with it along the way.