Can You Laugh at Yourself?

Posted on by Joyful2bee
Antics with a T-Rex Puppet.


Life is full of humorous events. Sometimes, I think they help us keep our sanity. It is easy to laugh at mistakes, slip ups, and other embarrassing things others do, but it is harder to laugh at ourselves in our own moment of weakness, at least immediately after they happen.
There are a few funny or even slightly embarrassing events that have happened in everyone’s life. So, I thought I would share a few of mine to make you feel better about any of your “slip ups.” So first, a not so embarrassing event.

Expiration Dates
The fact that I rarely cook anything but TV dinners (since I eat out often for lunch) contributed to my increased caution about checking expiration dates on my cabinet items. I am more careful about checking expiration dates on refrigerated items and other products that I know will expire in a few days, weeks, or months. But I never go through the cabinets monthly or weekly just to check the dates. So it’s easy for a substance to expire before I realize that a year has gone by.
My mother in law had supplies downstairs and often boxes of cereal in the cabinets that had expiration dates from a year or more ago! In her defense, she grew up in the depression. That started me being more cautious about checking those ” death” dates.
Dead Baking Powder
One day, I decided to make oatmeal cookies. I gathered the ingredients. Well, evidently, I hadn’t cooked oatmeal cookies from scratch since my husband’s death. The first ingredients had expiration dates well after the date I was checking them. But when I pulled out the baking powder, I was shocked to find that it had “died” two years ago!! Well, as you can see, I am not as fastidious about these things as others may be, especially since the last batch of oatmeal cookies had turned out just fine.
More Expired Expiration Dates
Since I had everything else I needed, I thought I would see if I could borrow one or two teaspoons of baking powder from one of my wonderful neighbors. I went to the oldest couple on the circle, and when she pulled out her baking soda, she found out that her’s had expired about the same time mine had! We laughed, and I went on to the next neighbor.
Well, to cut to the chase, two other neighbors had baking powder that had expired months and years ago, too. I gave up after that and just used my dead baking powder. You know what? The cookies were fine!! This was a shared embarrassment that was all taken in good humor.
A Much Bigger Embarrassment!
One of the most embarrassing things that happened to me has probably happened to a lot of other women. My husband was the new pastor in a church of about 150 people. He was about to lead a wedding ceremony for an out of town couple who were not members but had attended the church many years ago.
I was wearing a blue dress with a taffeta(shiny, material with body) skirt part that had a chiffon, (thin, light, floaty material) over-layer. I had just come out of the bathroom and was talking to someone. Suddenly, they told me that a man was signaling me.
I turned around to see the father of the bride, whom I didn’t know from Adam, motioning for me to turn around. I thought it rather peculiar, so I turned around, but he kept motioning to communicate something else. Finally, a lady nearby told me that my taffeta skirt was tucked into my underwear, which could be seen by all through the lovely chiffon layer!
I grinned sheepishly and thanked the man with more signs and escaped to the bathroom as quickly and unobtrusively as possible! I was thankful that I probably wouldn’t see this man or his family ever again!
But one male church member, with a wicked sense of humor and who was a good family friend, had been talking with the father of the bride and saw my predicament. I knew I would be reminded of this again someday when I saw the mischievous grin on his face!
A Misunderstanding
I had just started using Facebook a little before this event and was just beginning to get a grasp of how things worked. Well, one of my nephews I am proud to say ran for a position on the council of a big city. It seemed to me that he was posting advertisements on my page when I didn’t even live anywhere near his city. The words “Vote For Tom” kept appearing on my page. Finally, I messaged him and asked him not to post the ads on my page.
He was very sweet about it all and explained that because we listed each other as family, anything he posted, without privacy settings, would appear on everyone on his list of followers. He apologized, but I apologized more about my ignorance and felt horrible. Now, I can look back and laugh, knowing no permanent damage was done by my arrogance and ignorance.

Fatherly Wisdom Rules
My daddy had a saying that I just found out came from Shirley Maclaine: “The person who knows how to laugh at himself will never cease to be amused.” Let’s just say that this ability has served me well through many tough times. I laugh a lot and often.

68 thoughts on “Can You Laugh at Yourself?”

    1. I also read somewhere (don’t remember where) that it’s ourselves that make us feel embarrassment. So if we don’t want to feel embarrassed then we should just get over it and not think of it as embarrassing. Cause at that point, everyone else will forget about it too. Idk, it was something like that

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      1. Thank you, Lily-Anne. What a great and healthy way to look at embarassment! I love it! I suppose that is why most embarassments don’t bother me. I can see the humor in them and share a laugh with someone else too.Humor is a gift.
        thank you for commmenting!

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  8. I have read about post of your blog,
    I am glad to know about you . You are beautiful blogger.
    Loved connected with you hope more interaction with you.

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  12. Haha, thanks for sharing the chuckles! There’s a Charlie Chaplin quote that goes, “Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.” I guess being able to laugh at yourself shows that you have the ability to look beyond the narrow tunnel of misfortunes and get to see life from a distance…thus, instead of taking mishaps as a personal attack by nature against you, you see them as nothing but a good-natured ribbing from life! 🙂

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  13. Pingback: Can You Laugh at Yourself? – Exploring Grand Forks today

    1. Thanks, Jessica Harper. We all have “challenges” in keeping up with things. But keeping a sense of humor helps us keep sane and in touch with our inner child. Thanks for commenting.

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  22. Laughing is a special ability we human beings have. Enjoy laughing at every possible occasions. It helps to forget sad moments, it keeps us energetic. It matters a lot when one is able to laugh at oneself. Great going…. 🙂

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