Do You Ever Feel Like a Fool?
“Until you’re ready to look foolish, you’ll never have the possibility of being great. ”
Cher
April Fool’s Day is always a fun time for pranks,practical jokes and laughter. I sometimes sticky tape the kids into their bedrooms so it takes them a while to open their door in the morning, put salt on their toothbrushes or stuff the toes of their shoes with newspaper so they can’t get them on.
It makes me laugh and these kinds of activities amuse the Candy kids too, although it does send them into a frenzy to prank me back.
Finding pleasure in making other people feel foolish seems cruel because no one likes to look like a fool. But we do foolish things all the time. We make mistakes, we fall over, we embarrass ourselves. Feeling like a fool is just something we have to get used to, otherwise the fear of looking foolish will hold us back in life.
So if someone plays a trick on you on April Fool’s Day it’s good practice for making a fool of yourself, laughing about it and moving on. Because looking foolish is about failing and failing is the way we improve.
Let’s say you did something that made you look like a fool apart from get suckered by the April Fool news stories.
Maybe you got the giggles during a wedding ceremony, forgot the name of your school during a job interview or fell over on the red carpet. Don’t try to suppress the memory, that will only make you think about it more often. Instead think about the moment you looked like a fool, recall the feelings of shame, the hot face or tightness in your stomach and get used to that feeling.
Feeling foolish doesn’t feel good but it’s just a feeling.
Maybe you’ve felt foolish in the past because of what someone else did to you. If you got ripped off by scammers or cheated on by a lover you end up feeling like a fool and it hurts but look at the wealth of experience those bad experiences bring us.
If you’re courageously trying new things you’ll be bound to make a fool of yourself somewhere along the line. It just happens.
So today let’s celebrate our inner fool, get used to feelings of foolishness and overcome our fear of looking foolish.
I’ll start.
On our trip to Fraser Island my big teen was taking a photo of me when I got the urge to sneeze. Of course he took the photo of me anyway and showed it to everyone because I looked a fool.
So here I am looking foolish mid-sneeze but I’m okay with it. Wisdom only comes from experience and experience only comes if you make mistakes and end up looking foolish from time to time.
When have you ever felt like a fool?
Good points, Annabel! You know, I can’t remember a recent time when I felt foolish. But, I can remember that feeling of redness rushing into the cheeks and the sheer feeling of embarrassment more than once! You’re absolutely right though – we all makes mistakes and if we can laugh about it all it’s so much easier!
Hi Sandra,
Maybe it gets easier to laugh about embarrassing things when you get older :)
Often, because I do foolish things… my fave word is daft though, it’s a very forgiving word, don’t you think. The twins and I gave Paul a lovely brekkie this morning: toothpaste sandwiches and a nice mug of salty coffee. Funny! I do like April Fool’s day and will never forget that grove of spaghetti trees on the BBC long ago.
Hi Seana,
Yes daft is a great word and I nearly mentioned the spaghetti trees here too!
Ha ha! Yes Annabel. I arrived home from a very long flight from Ireland to Brisbane on Tuesday. I walked into the MEN”S room at the airport. You really don’t want to hear any more on that embarrassing and foolish incident. Jet lag does strange things to me.
Jude
Oh funny!!! And “Bless-You”!!!