The other day, I had to go to work quite early. I got up at 6. I puttered around.
Now, to be fair, for most people, getting up at 6 is the norm. But for me, it’s a little bit later, 7 or so. But regardless, I was up at 6, ready, feeling pretty good, beautiful summer’s day or sunny day.
Not quite summer yet, of course. And I was on my way very quickly, driving my trusty scooter down the highway and came to a stoplight. And the light was indicating right, so we had to wait for just a bit, so we wouldn’t turn illegally.
And I guess some people are a little bit late, because it is 7.30 on its way to 8 o’clock, the working hour. And this one person beside me turned illegally, and the man beside him just exploded in anger, screaming and hollering.
And he had a passenger with him as well, so I wonder what that poor man was subjected to. But what startled me was the anger. And for the life of me, there is no way I can believe that one small incident made that individual angry.
I think that poor soul was angry from the time he woke up, and probably from a lot longer than that. He was angry at a lot of things, and that probably transcended itself into anger at his family, and at times perhaps anger with his friends.
Just as a total aside, I was having dinner one evening, and there was a rather boisterous group of people beside me, about ten people at a table.
And I’m kind of in my own little world, eating away, and it’s quite early, it’s about eight o’clock in the evening.
And at one point, there’s this horrible screaming coming out of the table that I just alluded to, and this one man stood up, and he grabbed the table and he flipped it over. And there was food flying everywhere, but it was really very startling.
On two fronts, really. One, I was surprised that he had the strength to flip over a table. And secondly, just the anger.
Gosh, I don’t think I’ve ever been that angry in my 69 years of life, and I have certainly been angry, but that angry? That I’m creating physical violence, basically? Ruining the dinner for all my friends and family?
Gosh, have a laugh. I think every now and then we just should say to ourselves, wait a moment, I’m going to have a bit of a laugh here.
At whatever circumstance, I’m not going to get angry, be it may it the man who’s just cut me off, or perhaps the clerk that was a bit rude to me, or it just goes on, doesn’t it? Who’s got the time to go through life in an angry state?
And many studies have shown that if you’re an angry person, you actually damage your life. Your cells respond accordingly, and you live a shorter existence, and it would only seem to be natural, because the world wants light, beauty.
All you have to do is walk in a garden and see those beautiful flowers displayed before you with their stunning bouquet, and for the life of me, I cannot believe that flowers are angry.
And if they were angry, I think they would probably all be dead, because happiness is what makes things grow, and we’re often told to talk to our plants and play Mozart to our plants, not to scream at our plants.
I think an experiment would be to get up every morning and scream at your plants. I wonder how long they would actually survive with those kinds of vibrations. Scream at your animals and see how long they come to you in a loving fashion.
Scream at your friends. You’d have no friends and it just goes on, doesn’t it? So we need to laugh at ourselves.
And why do we need to laugh?
Well, basically, having a laugh at yourself, I think, is a way that we remove the toxicity which builds up in all of us in a modern society. And I think, first of all, when I laugh at myself, it takes away my self-importance.
And I’m a pretty important guy, because really I’m the only individual I truly know. Everyone else is a bit of an illusion, aren’t they? I can touch someone, I can feel the warmth of their body, but who are they inside?
I have no way of truly knowing, no way. So I should think to myself, gosh, for a moment, I’m not that important, have a bit of a laugh, right? And I think it allows me to realize I am a human being amongst 8 billion human beings, right?
And some of us get really uptight, especially if we are in positions of power. Look at me, I’m so important. And it doesn’t take very much, does it?
A friend of mine was saying the other day that certain young people can take a picture if they’re young enough and good looking enough and post the picture of their body, perhaps in a bathing suit or something along this nature, and they will get
back thousands of likes. back thousands of likes.
Now, what does that do for your ego? Well, we know what it does. It makes the ego stronger, but it doesn’t help the self, as Jung would call it.
It doesn’t really lead to any process of individuation at all. It just allows the ego in a rather vain way to grow, right? And so when you laugh at yourself, it does the opposite.
It strengthens the self, and it gives you some real resilience, because we are here for a limited period of time, and we do have to answer the questions I often allude to. Why am I here? What is my mission?
And what happens when I leave here? And it’s nice to have, to be a bit modest, if you will, without feeling embarrassed and feeling small. It was the old adage that I have to be humble before God, and modest before my fellow man.
When you laugh at yourself, I think other people think that you’re more, I don’t know, trustworthy as well. It’s true, isn’t it? They think you’re more one of us, as they say.
It kind of, in that sense, diffuses social tension. I’ve often noticed in many of my classes, when I laugh, they laugh. And I laugh at myself, I tell a story that’s funny.
People seem, you know, realize that we’re all just human beings. Because I think the danger of moral arrogance is right there, isn’t it? Always.
All you have to do is look at people evidently of some power, some politicians. I was reading the other day about a poor soul. His name is Senator Bob Menendez.
And he was convicted of corruption. And now he’s going to jail for, I think, 13 years. Now, I said to myself, wow, how the mighty have fallen.
And here was a man who probably worked all his life to try and help people. But eventually his intrinsic greed got the better of him, didn’t it? And he just lost his moral compass.
So I think when you laugh at yourself, you realize, I’m not that serious.
I cannot take myself that serious. So this would be my statement to the man on the scooter at 7.30 in the morning. Relax, man.
It’s just not that serious. Nothing is, because what is serious is the gift of life. One of my colleagues the other day said to me that in his faith, he believes in reincarnation, and human beings are the highest form.
Well, if that’s true, then I think we should realize that this precious gift called life is meant to be filled with joy. Not always, of course, because we have to be real.
Life is difficult, and at times there are painful situations that bring anger to the forefront. But gosh, I think all of us realize that anger has got to dissipate quickly, or like I said earlier, it becomes just toxic, just poison.
For me, a big solution to a really frustrating day is to honestly take a quick walk in a park, and inevitably, if it’s warm enough, in a park, there are children.
And children are free and filled with imagination, and they’re laughing away, and there’s perhaps dogs barking in the process, and you can hear the birds twittering, and it produces a real effect. So laugh at yourself every now and then.
It’ll be a wonderful gift to you. And you know what they say, you know what they say. Critical thinking is everything, especially when we learn to laugh at ourselves, and enjoy just being a human being.
And critical thinking is great, truly great. You take care. God bless.
Bye-bye.