Whatever wholesome activity that you are passionate about is a good thing, but don't take it too seriously.
You don't want to be so passionate about a topic that you act self-righteous and obnoxious.
I think that's what people mean when they say "Don't be too serious [about what you love doing].
" They just don't want you to run amuck with your passion.
It took me a long time to realize that.
My passion is poetry.
I sort of came late to this passion.
First I graduated college without ever taking a poetry appreciation or writing course.
Then I became an elementary school teacher, and still poetry wasn't that important to me.
But I drove the other teachers and staff members nuts in the teacher's lounge because I loved words and puns.
I was always making the lunch crew groan with my puns.
They seemed to think that my puns were only two-thirds complete, as in P-U.
Nonetheless, when you're in love with something you're usually too star-struck to let go of it, even in the presence of crowded groaning adults in a windowless room.
Yes, I loved words, but not poetry yet.
I didn't fall in love with poetry until I started reading all of Shel Silverstein's poetry books, From "Where the Sidewalk Ends" to "A Light in the Attic.
" My students loved hearing his poetry and laughing at his collection of magic words.
That's when poetry started becoming important part of me.
I loved the roar of their laughter and their eyes shining like bulbs twinkling on a gigantic Christmas tree.
Their faces also said, "This teacher is alright.
I'm going to like him this year.
He has a good sense of humor.
" And they did like me.
In the movie "The Dead Poets Society" English professor John Keating inspires his students to love of poetry and to seize the day.
But at one point he does stand on his desk to speak to his students.
I think that's a little over the top, don't you? He also tells his students "We don't read and write poetry because it's cute.
We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.
And the human race is filled with passion.
And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.
But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for...
" Again that might be over the top-that is, taking your passion too seriously.
We need a balance of seriousness and laughter in our lives.
I have that balance.
Okay, beauty and balance are in the eyes of the beholder.
But I can prove to you that I'm balanced...
sort of...
I find all of the following quotes about poets and poetry funny.
And there may even be some truth lurking in one or more of them.
If I took poetry too seriously, I couldn't possibly laugh at these:

1. "You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.
   "~John Ciardi
2. "Not everyone who drinks is a poet.
   Some of us drink because we're not poets.
   "~Dudley Moore
3. "Poets, we know, are terribly sensitive people, and in my observation one of the things they are most sensitive about is money.
   "~Robert Penn Warren
4. "A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.
   "~Edmond de Goncourt
5. "Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
   "~Gilbert K.
   Chesterton
6. "There is the view that poetry should improve your life.
   I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.
   "~John Ashbery
7. "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
   "~Robert Frost

Yes, life goes on, and it's best lived without taking our passions to seriously, especially reading and writing poetry.
Nobody want to be perceived as self-righteous and obnoxious.