It’s important to be able to laugh at yourself – and here’s why!

You’ve made a mistake, or someone has played a practicaljoke designed to make you looked foolish. Other people are laughing at you –and you just wish the ground would open up beneath you! How do you deal withthat situation?

Of course, not each situation is the same – if you are witha close group of friends who laugh because they have found your embarrassingfaux pas genuinely funny, then lighten up and try to see that they aren’tlaughing in order to make you feel bad. Laughter is a driving dynamic behindalmost all friendships, and when your face is red just try to remember that itwill soon be someone else’s turn – and that you’ll be laughing when thathappens! If you can embrace your mortification and laugh with the others, it’llbe forgotten quicker. If it isn’t, at least in future people will laugh withyou, rather than at you.

Unfortunately, we are not always with good friends whenthings go wrong. If you feel that the laughter isn’t good hearted – that it’smalicious, that the people laughing are revealing in your awkward feeling, thenwhat do you do? The most important thing to remember is not to get angry –because if people see it bothers you, then their natural reaction is to findthe whole situation funnier, and the memory of it will last longer. In thiscase, laugh, but try to smoothly change the subject. If it carries on, try tomake yourself scarce until people have forgotten. Although you have to askyourself, if these people make you feel so bad, why would you want to spend anymore time with them?

So, those genuinely unpleasant situations aside, it isimportant to be able to laugh at yourself. It shows you don't take yourself tooseriously, that you aren’t afraid to make mistakes.  Everyone messes up now and then – if you cantake it in your stride and see the funny side, you’ll be a much happier person,especially if you can learn from it! Many successful , funny comedians manageto take awkward moments from their lives and retell them in their acts. Bylaughing at themselves and inviting their audience to laugh with them they aretaking control of the embarrassing situation, turning it round, and making itwork for them – if you can emulate this, you’ll be telling the joke instead ofbeing the joke. We all make mistakes; we’ve all fallen on the proverbial bananaskin and had a metaphorical pie to the face – the worst thing you can do isdeny it. Just take it in your stride, admit it was funny, and move on.

No one likes ‘that guy’ – you know the one, the guy who canlaugh at other people, but when it comes back to him, he doesn’t like to belaughed at. There’s a reason that he isn’t so popular – he takes himself tooseriously.  Life is too short to beseriously all the time, and laughter is, as everyone knows, one of the bestmedicines and will help to de-stress your life. Next time you do somethingridiculous, see the funny side - just laugh, and if people laugh with you, youcan feel good about making them feel good!