OCD - Accepting your Discomfort in How to be a Fool

Now – are you ready to be a fool?

A powerful individual has the ability to be a fool. The person that thinks he is not a fool is the biggest fool of them all. We are all fools. Don’t be mad; all of us are fools at some point in our life. If you doubt this, think back to a time in your life when you did something stupid. Think about something stupid you did in the last few days. You know what I am talking about, that embarrassing thing you did last week that you tried to hide. We all try to pretend we are not fools when we do something out of the ordinary. People who insist that they have never been a fool are probably the biggest fools of them all. We are all imperfect. Part of the problem that many people face is the unwillingness to accept that we are all fools sometimes.

People spend their lives trying to be something they are not. They miss the best part of their lives as a result. For example, many people will not dance because they fear they will look ridiculous. They may not be wrong; they may look ridiculous but that is all part of being a fool. It’s OK to look like a fool while you are dancing. It is also OK to sound ridiculous when you sing or even be absurd. Being absurd all the time is not OK. Being a fool sometimes is OK, but being a fool all the time means we are trying to escape our responsibilities for our actions. Being a fool doesn’t mean that you go out and get drunk and make a fool of yourself either. Disrupting the classroom to get attention is not a way to be a fool.

Being a fool means that you recognize your foolishness as well as your courage, dignity, graces, clumsiness and cowardice, as well as other human qualities. We all have this much in common.

Thus, you may as well risk being a fool because we are all fools already and nothing you can do will change that fact. So why not enjoy the moments when you do act like a fool?

Take for example a person who is afraid to dance; yet another person is out on the basketball field kicking the ball every time it is thrown at the person. If you say that this person looks like a circus clown in the court, the person may agree with you. “So what,” the person may say. “I’m not a pro player like Michael Jordon.” This person would be right. The person instead is willing to look foolish just to enjoy the game.

The person who doesn’t dance because of her fear of looking ridiculous is missing the fun of dancing and expressing themselves. Most people who think they look ridiculous after giving it a shot will find that they do well. Furthermore, looking ridiculous on the dance floor is about as fun as looking like a circus clown on the ball court.

If you fear being a fool, there is one sure way to avoid it and that is avoiding life.

Writers who do not want to write because they fear of getting a negative review miss the opportunity to learn and grow. Those negative reviews just might be the ticket to learning how to write an effective dialog. The person who sits out of a ballgame or misses a trip to some special place they wanted to travel and thinks that he or she is safe from errors are missing the most critical parts of life.

When a person is willing to increase his or her chances of being comfortable with making mistakes, i.e. being a fool, this person has the best chances of succeeding.

We must be willing to take risks

We are not happy striving to do badly. Mediocrity or weakness is not a goal. The point is, when our willingness to master a problem involves doing something new we may fail, but it is a part of learning. We have to make corrections to achieve our goals and we may even make the same mistakes twice or even more often. Thus, the only way to become good at something is to be willing to make mistakes.

Revised clichés to consider –

Anything that is worth doing is often worth doing wrong the first time.

Practice makes improvement.

If you fail the first time, try it again.

Professionals aim to make fools of themselves. Comedians in particular strive to be foolish. We see this when the comedian is standing on stage in front of a large group of people who show no response to their jokes. The comedian as well as others look and feel like fools. A comedian who thinks that he must be funny all the time is setting himself up for rejection because we all must fail to succeed. We must show courage to be foolish.

Courage is seen in people –

People who return to college in their late 40s and older are showing courage: a child who waves bye to her parents on her first day of school is showing courage. These people are showing a willingness to take risks and perhaps fail.

Your willingness to be a fool by taking risks are experiments that help you build new skills, which in turn helps you to grow. A reward that come from risk-taking and making mistakes is creativity. Our creativity skills advance when we learn from our mistakes. We also feel more satisfied with ourselves and can enjoy self-expression and greater joy.

Practice

The next time you do something silly or stupid allow yourself to experience the feelings. Do not try to hide them or deny them. Observe everything about the feelings including the thoughts and physical sensations that follow. Acknowledge your foolishness. Allow yourself to be precisely who you are. Explore all of your thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations and images that surround the experience.

Next, remember that you have the power to act independently of your feelings. Courage is the not fearlessness but the willingness to act even when you feel fear. For example, we may feel homesick, but continue to travel, as we will ourselves to do it. Some people may fear singing on stage, but go to the microphone anyway. Others may fear talking in public or giving public speeches but they go on stage anyway. When a person completely experiences it, the fear of being foolish looses its power, which gives us the inner strength to learn and grow. Thus, be willing to be a fool!

Write – After you perform the practices in this OCD article, write out your thoughts and feelings. Talk about your experiences as well.

Daily duties – write daily your thoughts and feelings on paper as they occur or when you can. Talk with someone you trust about your opinions, thoughts, ideas, feelings etc, and ask them to offer you some insight on how they perceive your problems.

Summary

Now that you learned about the benefits of being a fool sometimes, it is time to push forward and learn how to change your beliefs and reduce stress simultaneously. This should be a fun journey for you by now, especially if you performed the worksheets and practices we suggested in the guide.