Common sense isn’t as common as you might think. People do dumb things due to literally dozens of reasons. Some don’t know any better; others are having a bad day; and a small number of individuals are absolutely malicious and love spreading mischief and chaos everywhere.
That’s not to say that anyone’s actually immune to embarrassing mistakes that can later lead to warning signs. We’ve all had our moments! Even highly educated individuals have messed up in silly ways, as we’ve covered on Bored Panda right over here.
It’s how we deal with this sense of embarrassment in incredibly awkward situations that says a lot about our character. Having a good sense of humor can be incredibly helpful if you ever find yourself in a tough spot.
Professor Suzanne Degges-White, from Northern Illinois University, told Bored Panda during an earlier interview that both a sense of humor and flexibility are key traits for “successful adulthood and being able to laugh at our missteps allows us to go easy on ourselves when we do something potentially embarrassing.”
“No one likes to 'lose face,' and that is engrained to varying degrees across cultures. Unfortunately, our brains may be especially prone to catastrophizing events and so we might make something more out of something no one else really noticed and no one else will recall later on," the licensed counselor said.
"For decades, magazines have been publishing those 'Boy! Was my Face Red!' type of columns where people shared their embarrassing moments. When we are able to 'get it off our chest,' we actually feel better about the event,” she said that opening up about our embarrassment and mistakes, rather than shying away from them, is the mature way to react.
“That's a healthy response to an embarrassing moment. When our personalities are wired to feel that we must be 'perfect' in all that we do, we internalize negative feelings about the mistake we made and mistakenly assume that everyone else is judging us due to that one moment," the expert said.
"Fortunately, our brains are designed to protect us from pain and many of us may suffer horrible humiliation at some point in our lives, but we can benefit from a brain that allows us to 'selectively forget' the incident or else we're able to rationalize it by reminding ourselves that 'everyone makes mistakes,' 'it was just one time and no one will remember it,' or similar healthy responses."
If you do end up making a massive mistake, acknowledge it, embrace it, view it as a learning experience. “Then remind ourselves that everyone makes mistakes—that's totally normal behavior! Then figure out a way to laugh at yourself before allowing someone else to laugh at you first. When you laugh at yourself, others laugh WITH you, not AT you,” the professor told us.
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