Yesterday, I experienced something interesting about my mental change. I had come to be able to laugh away my failure. Today, I will talk about it.
How to laugh about our failures
Sometimes, we want to live with less stress. Various things we are not good at exhaust us.
One example is lying to ourselves. It keeps us tense to maintain the lie. One of the lies is refusing to face our failures.
If we can laugh away our failures, our minds will become lighter. We don’t have to be so nervous. In other words, we can live naturally.
However, it is sometimes difficult.
I had been in such a state for a long time. I often struggled to accept my losses or mistakes.
However, yesterday, I realized I had come to be able to laugh away my failure.
My failure on X (Twitter)
The trigger was my failure on X (Twitter). Two days ago, I announced I had started it again.
I had anticipated I would gather some followers. However, there were no new followers even after around a day from my notification.
It was a complete failure! It disappointed me.
Despite my feeling down, that made me laugh. My predictions are completely off! I noticed that it had been a while since I had missed my prediction this big. I relaxed my body.
That made me realize I could laugh about my failures. It was not only this mistake but also many other past failures. Now I can make fun of them as a funny experience.
This realization impressed me because it was a big change in my mind.
The causality of laughter
Let’s look at why I became able to laugh away my failures by explaining my mental work.
The reason for my mental change is simple. I relaxed. That made me laugh at my failures.
We often misunderstand the causality, as follows:
- (Wrong) We laugh about it, and that makes us relaxed.
- (Correct) We relax, and that allows us to laugh about it.
Relax first. Then, we can laugh it away. Not vice versa.
Tense state vs. relaxed state
Come to think of it, it is natural.
Compare the following two situations: tense state and relaxed state.
First, imagine we are in a fatal situation, such as the frontline in a war and a dangerous disaster. One mistake will kill us. In such a condition, we cannot laugh about anything. Laughter and crying take away our muscle strength and concentration.
Then, suppose we realized our ideal life and relaxed wholeheartedly. We might have had a delicious dinner and taken a hot spring bath. We don’t have to worry about anything for a while. We also have a new hope to improve our lives, but let’s forget about it for now. At last, we made it happen. We can relax now.
In such a condition, we naturally laugh or cry when remembering past pains. The bigger the suffering of the past, the greater the laughter and tears.
Relaxation: the mother of laughter and crying
They tell us that relaxation gives us laughter and crying.
Not the other way around. Although there are methods of laughing on purpose, they take advantage of a conditioned reflex of laughter. In other words, they are just trivial mental tricks. They cannot change our fundamental mind states.
That is why I suddenly became able to laugh away all my past failures. I recently developed my logical sense. It calms down our empathy and emotions. In other words, it relaxed me.
That made me laugh about the failure of my Twitter prediction.
Two applications
This mental principle tells us two things.
- We don’t have to force ourselves to accept past failures.
- Relaxation allows us to accept the past.
When we are in a state of being tense, it is natural to be unacceptable about everything. Trying to accept the past is pointless.
Instead, relax if you want to change. Rationality allows us to calm down.
In other words, hot and emotional fighting is for maintaining the current situation. Cool and reasonable thinking is for change.
Be composed yourself if you want to reconstruct your life. Discouragement and feelings of depression are parts of relaxation. They make us rational.
Once you are sufficiently relaxed, you will accept all your past naturally. You don’t have to worry so much about your past.
Conclusion
That is why I became able to laugh away my failures.
We relax, and that allows us to laugh about it. Not vice versa.
Relax if you want to change. Rationality allows us to calm down.
This experience might allow you to reconstruct your life.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
