Laugh and The World Laughs With You, Cry and We Are Still Laughing

The ability to laugh at yourself is a life saver.

Seriously.

People who lack that gene, for whom all stumbles are a disaster, all bumps in the road a catastrophe, all hiccups a brick wall in the path of what we now call ‘success,’ are more prone to depression, isolation, and unhealthy self-loathing.

Suicide, the act of killing oneself, can be directly related to these three factors.

So, essentially, people kill themselves because they make mistakes.

Now I am going to be completely candid here.

Paedophiles, violent criminals and rapists…? Let me hand you that length of rope.

The rest of us?

Just calm the fuck down.

Got drunk and slept with that guy from across the hall/ made out with your same sex best mate/ woke up under someone whose name currently escapes you? Well, we can always add one more number to THAT list. Have a shower, buy a course of amoxicillin from the chemist, give yourself a high five for being so heterofexible (it’s SO in right now).

Pressed delete at work when you should have pressed save/ told your boss he was a total fucktard when he was being a total fucktard/ spent the afternoon on Facebook in the hope that that report WOULD write itself? Meh, unemployment is a great way to learn more about the parks in your area, and all the cool stuff they do at the local Art Gallery, plus there is that book you’ve been meaning to write.

Paid the rent late for the 900^th time and now your landlord is evicting you/ failed to lodge a tax return for the past 3 years/ purchased 4 pairs of Jimmy Choo’s because if you spent over $ 15,000 they gave you 25 % off (and 25 % off 4 pairs of  Jimmy Choo’s is like free shoes!!!) ? Aren’t you glad you learned more about your local park? Plus, prison is a free bed; you can’t take it with you. Money is just money. It’s not air.

We spend too much time worrying about the artificial anti-failure measures that are put in place to keep us ‘in line’ and behaving ‘properly’.

Although I never buy his products, the prodigious talent that was Steve Jobs said “Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

We must learn, or re-learn, to laugh at ourselves.

We must be joyful that we live to make these so called ‘mistakes’. We must own them, embrace them, and appreciate all that they teach us. And we must laugh at our own folly.

Because in the end, as Steve Jobs, and every other person facing death, discovered, it doesn’t really matter.

And the truth is, my friends, we are all dying. Each and every one of us.

But before I go, I intend to live with a happy heart, knowing that both my triumphs and my tragedies have given such pleasure to those around me. I am a born entertainer in that way. As Mr Bennet says in Jane Austin’s classic Pride and Prejudice, “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?”

Bring on the custard pies; this is going to be a doozie !!!!