Last weeks column brought a surprise for me and set my mind to a thinkin’.

What I’m referring to is my blunder over Easter falling on a Sunday. When I realized I had publicly embarrassed myself with my oversight and knew I couldn’t take it back, I had a good laugh about it all.

Some who know me may have been embarrassed for me and tried to justify my error. I appreciate that gesture.

I could have chocked it up to an April Fool’s joke, but I missed the opportunity.

Public embarrassment is character building, or should be. I listened to a Ted Talk where Monica Lewinsky spoke about being “that woman”. She spoke as if she hadn’t quite digested all of the events that had happened to her.

A point I missed in her speech was that of humor. Without making light of her experiences, surely there is humor there somewhere. It is humor that helps relieve the burdens of the day.

There was a time when I volunteered with Shaw Cable Community Broadcasting in Red Deer Alberta. I was co-hosting a live show where people would phone in to buy and sell items. At that time everything was video taped so the show could be aired at a later date.

I watched myself on the video tape after the show aired. I was horrified with what I saw. I had dry lips and was licking them while talking on the phone and talking to my co-host. Three thousand people at any one time were watching the show and there I was, licking my lips.

I was embarrassed, but then I thought to myself, who really cares? I’m the only one that it impacts, so if it doesn’t matter to any one else, why should it matter to me? I just accepted it, squared my shoulders and moved on.

Once I learned to laugh at myself, it made accepting my errors a lot easier.

As I told one of my faithful readers, I’m not going to quit writing and I will probably stumble more, I just hope it doesn’t happen any time soon. And when it does, we will all have a good laugh.

email: ruralreportwithlairdsmith@gmail.com