Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can.
- Elsa Maxwell (1883 - 1963)
I just read this quote in Sheepish: Two Women, Fifty Sheep, and Enough Wool to Save the Planet, a humorous memoir about sheep farming by Catherine Friend. As I have been trying to do more often when I read a statement that's been quoted in a book unrelated to the quotee, I did an internet search on Elsa Maxwell to find out who she was.
The things you can learn on the internet! I'll bet you didn't know that the scavenger hunt and treasure hunt were introduced as party games by Elsa. I didn't either. Elsa was a gossip columnist and professional hostess extraodinaire in New York. She was the first to be called "The Hostess with the Mostess," and celebrities clamored after invitations to her parties.
Of her celebrity-studded life, she declared that it was "not bad, for a short, fat, homely piano player from Keokuk, Iowa, with no money or background, [who] decided to become a legend and did just that."
Clearly, she was a woman from whom I have much to learn. No, I don't suddenly have a desire to be the Hostess of Valdez, but, oh, to have the chutzpah!
I have been trying (and succeeding, I think) to adopt an attitude of laughing at myself before anyone else can laugh at me. That's part of the reason I do posts like the one I did yesterday in which I display the less-than-perfect me. Admittedly, I also have the somewhat pretentious hope that if I display the things I'm trying, often with mixed success, perhaps others will be inspired to try something new themselves. Perhaps that's a bit egotisitc, but if so, it's not intentional.
For me, the other part of laughing at myself is accepting who I am the way I am. I was thinking about this yesterday while I was out for a walk. (Mindless exercise is great for ruminations of all sorts.) While I in no way think I'm perfect and there are certainly minor things I'd like to change about myself (mostly related to my weight), I am overall happy with who I am and where I'm at in life. I think it's much easier to be able to laugh at oneself if one is happy with oneself. (Ha! How's that for a formal sounding sentence?) I also think this is an attitude that comes best with age, after you've had a few years to experiment with life and who you want to be. Good lord, if I'm this crazy now, what am I going to be like at 60?!
So, it looks like you can expect me to continue to put myself out there, warts and all. If you laugh at me, too, please do so kindly, even if I can't hear you. Thanks.
P.S. Sheepish is a very fun book, and I recommend you read it. Unfortunately, I have it on my Kindle, or I'd be happy to lend it to you.
