Why so serious?

Let's face it: we as Infosec professionals are a pretty serious bunch.  We have the serious wrinkles marking up our faces and the gray hair to accompany it.  We throw around terms like threat, risk, vulnerability, acceptable loss and mitigation like candy at a parade.  We joke about starting comedy shows when we retire because you just can't make this stuff up.

We have to be serious, or we won't get taken seriously.

I had a weird thing happen to me though: The other day, I started on a project that brought me a feeling I wasn't wholly familiar with.  My head felt a little light, my fingers typed madly (one might say with passion), I had energy surging throughout my body and I had this odd thing across my face.  It was a smile.

We have to remember that not only do we have to laugh once and a while, but we need to enjoy what we do (and yes, the above incident actually happened while working, although I am not sure anyone witnessed it.)

If you aren't having fun doing your job, then you are going to make everyone else miserable too.  That's just human nature.

No, I am not telling you to chuck it all and run wild through the streets.  I want you to stay in the fight and do good work!  I am simply saying that sometimes, we have to work at finding a little joy in our day.  Here are a couple of thoughts:

1) Did your security awareness program generate an unexpected incident report (e.g . did the light bulb go off from a tough customer?)

2) Did you win a risk mitigation argument with someone for the better of the organization by actually convincing that someone it was the right thing to do?

3) Did you have a smart, interesting debate with someone about a challenging issue, and you worked it out together?

3) Did you learn something?

Or maybe you just visit http://icanhas.cheezburger.com/lolcats? once a day to put a smile on your face.  Whatever it takes: commiserating with peers, going home on time to spend time with your family or telling jokes, do something that lightens your mood.  Having fun on the job with a positive attitude does wonders and has interesting side-effects.  Did I just catch you smiling right now as you read this?