Laugh a Little

Isn’t this delightful? I don’t know much about this painting except to say the artist is from Rome and his name is Alberto Macone. Any information I find on him, and there isn’t much, is written in Italian and I’m not smart enough to figure out how to translate it.

Speaking of not being smart enough, I was driving east on Seventh Avenue the other day and I noticed this bumper sticker on the car in front of me. It made me laugh.

Have you heard the saying, “It’s funny because it’s true”? There may be some validity to that saying. I laughed out loud at this bumper sticker because, for me, it’s true! Sometimes I do dumb things and people need to be warned. Now, please don’t think that I have low self-esteem or count myself as perpetually stupid. It’s just that—at times—I’m not always the sharpest tool in the shed. In fact, I wondered about my intelligence as I fished out my cell phone and snapped this picture while in the car. To my credit, at least I waited until we were both stopped at a red light.

What do we do when we do stupid stuff? If the act is not life-altering in a bad way, hopefully we can laugh at ourselves and move on. Unfortunately, our instinct is to beat ourselves up and throw in a little negative self-talk. But I don’t think that is what God wants and it is definitely not helpful. We need to give ourselves a little grace, just as we give grace to others and God gives grace to us. So what if we do dumb stuff now and then? We are still 100% sacred and worthy. And human.

Being Human connection: Like the boy in the painting—laugh a little. Laugh at yourself. Lighten up. Life’s too short to be a perfectionist. Think of laughing at yourself as a way to practice radical self-love.

Featured art: Alberto Macone, Ask Me If I’m Happy

“For the despondent, every day brings trouble; for the happy heart, life is a continual feast.” -Proverbs 15:15