We’re Not Perfect: Why Now Is The Perfect Time To Laugh At Ourselves
You aren’t perfect. I know, that’s a tough concept to grasp when we’re raised in a culture that sees imperfection as weakness. We live our lives putting up this façade that everything is okay when, more often than not, it isn’t. Each of us has our own shortcomings, and we perform some intricate mental gymnastics to justify and cover up those shortcomings. Here’s the reality: life is an imperfect web of uncertainty, and in our quest to create certainty, because we aren’t perfect, we mess up. Guess what? Admitting you aren’t perfect, that you’re vulnerable, and that you may be wrong is actually a sign of strength and confidence — not weakness. Realizing your imperfections can be a tough pill to swallow, but this is where humor comes into play. Humor is the cheese you wrap around this pill. It makes looking at your faults more palatable and provides the realization that there are a number of different ways to look at ourselves and the world we live in. This isn’t about laughing at yourself in a self-disparaging way while avoiding your problems, it’s about not taking ourselves so seriously so we can see a bigger picture.
Be imperfect. Be vulnerable. Be wrong.
Hell, I may be wrong for writing this blog post. But the world needs, more than anything, people to stop taking themselves so seriously, admit they could be wrong, laugh it off, learn from it, and move on. We need to look at the way we’ve been doing things, laugh at the absurdity of it all, and use that perspective shift as a jumping-off point for change.
Because if you think that the current system is the best system, you lack imagination. For example:
Social media has the power to connect people from across the globe so we can learn from one another, allowing for previously unheard people from underdeveloped nations to share their ideas. Instead, we use it to argue politics. That’s funny.
We’re raised in a schooling system that emphasizes individual achievement where we work by ourselves, test by ourselves, and are ranked individually so we can compare ourselves with our classmates. But when we graduate from college and enter the workforce, we’re expected to be able to work cohesively with our colleagues. That’s funny.
We see in the news, groups of people protesting in the streets that the government is trampling on their rights, whether in the form of a quarantine to fight a global pandemic or the unfair and sometimes aggressive treatment of citizens by the police. When we need conversation and self-awareness to build a new collective vision, we get conflict and self-importance, with no shared vision to discuss. That’s funny.
Every single day, we do things that are funny, absurd, and nonsensical without even realizing. We share information is an effort to “be right,” rather than to educate or make someone else’s life better. The moment we begin sentences with, “I may be wrong about this, but…” is the moment we make ourselves more approachable, more likable, and even smarter. In a world where, in the scheme of things, life is good, it can be way, WAY better. Sticking with how things are and attaching ourselves to our egos is a recipe for disaster.
Embracing change begins by separating ourselves from our egos, and one of the quickest ways to do that is by laughing at yourself. Try it. What’s something silly you’ve done in the last year that’s funny in hindsight? Allow yourself to laugh, because once you allow yourself to laugh, you allow yourself to learn, and that is a sign of strength.
