Just let me laugh at myself
I hate being embarrassed. I hate it when I state a fact and it turns out to be wrong. I hate it when I try to do something and completely flop at it. I hate it when I try to reach out to somebody and they turn me down.
I hate being embarrassed. But I wish I didn’t.
If there is anything that has held me back in life, it’s my deathly fear of embarrassing myself. It’s something I’ve wrestled with for years, and it’s becoming exhausting.
Pope Francis in his autobiography, speaks of the importance of laughter. Laughter in the face of difficult situations, but also laughter directed at ourselves and our own shortcomings. Narcissism, he says, can be avoided with self-irony.
As the famous quote goes: “Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly.”
There is nothing wrong or unnatural about being embarrassed in the face of failure, but retreating into ourselves and hiding from the world to avoid embarrassment does us no good. In doing this, we deprive ourselves the opportunity to grow, to move forward. We take no risks, but we also rot away.
Yet this is exactly what I find myself doing over and over again. Even here, with this publication, I’ve found myself embarrassed. Embarrassed by what I write, embarrassed that barely anybody seems to care.
But if I take that approach to everything I do, how will I ever stick to something long enough for it to take fruit?
I wish I could take myself less seriously. I wish I could tell that grumpy necrotic old man that is my inhibitions to just let me laugh at myself.
I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of trying to pretend I’m perfect. I want to be able to go out there and just be myself, just do things. Not to throw myself into a ravine. Just to live life with a little less fear. And a little more freedom.
Me and Myself ...and I