A Taste of Humility

Sometimes, it's best to admit defeat.  We can struggle against current circumstances and still find ourselves victim to the very situation we tried to avoid.

Which is totally why you should anticipate seeing every person you haven't seen in a few years when you walk out of the house wearing yoga pants you should never wear in public.  Oh, and your hair will look wonky and you'll be fatter than you've ever been.

But lose 20 lbs, wear your cutest outfit, have the best make-up and hair day you've ever seen in your time on this planet, and you won't run into a single person who can call you by your first name.

I think this is what we in the Christian community like to refer to as humility.  Nothing like a little public embarassment to keep you humble.  But mostly, I mean hothing like a little public embarassment to keep me humble.  And most circumstances in my life seem hell bent on that very outcome.

You know how that affects me?  I've learned to laugh--longer and louder and harder than most people I know.  Sometimes, I'll laugh until someone else decides to join me just because they find my laughing so amusing.  Often, that laughing is justified, because something about the less savory parts of my life have made for the best stories when I turned the situation on it's side and looked at it through a different lens.

(Not all situations.  But a good many of them.)

Which is why I think it's a little amusing when my fat butt walks into a steakhouse with friends wearing yoga pants that shouldn't be anywhere near my cellulite.

Or laugh when I complete my midterm and my professor looks confused and says, "But it's only been fifteen minutes?!"  (Nothing like second guessing yourself on the way out the door!)

Or I miss my dog and usually discover him in my closet licking the garbage out of my black flats.

Who doesn't want to look through the wrong end of the telescope and laugh because we're pointing out something everyone's felt, but only you have been brave enough to discuss?

Since I've been feeling better, I've had the opportunity to appreciate the lack of uniqueness that often goes ignored in the day to day.

And I really hope that tomorrow, when you notice a little quirk in your regular schedule, you find a reason to laugh. 

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; 

It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.

Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities."

--Dr. Seuss