Today’s prompt is “brought to you by the very wordy Jim Adams, is “Humiliate.” Use it any way you’d like in your post. And make sure you visit Jim at his blog, “A Unique Title for Me” to read his post and say hi! Here’s his link:  https://jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com/” (https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/11/jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-11th-2018/)  These Jots are not only my 500-words a day challenge, but also part of my  Ultimate Blogging Challenge challenge (http://ultimateblogchallenge.com).

Humiliate

Today’s Just Jot prompt word is “humiliate”.  What a loaded word!  Some people can be so easily humiliated by the simplest things.  Like realizing suddenly when you look in the mirror that you have something on your face, or in your hair, or in your teeth.  Humiliating!  And what about when you get a bad grade on a paper when you thought you did really well?  Humiliatious!  Or maybe you said something incorrect and have to go back and correct what you said to a room full of people.  Humliamungous!  But why, I ask myself, am I so easily humiliated by things that in the end don’t matter at all, while other people who do far worse just move on with life, blaming everyone else for the stupid crap they say and do?  Am I talking about someone in particular?  Yes, yes I am.  And not just the person you are thinking of, although that person should be living in a state of permanent humiliation.  And what’s the difference between embarrassment and humiliation anyway?  Humiliation sounds much worse.  Like it’s something that goes deeper and lasts longer than a red face of embarrassment.  Hmmm…I never thought about it that way.

Anyway, my thinking is that it’s ok to be embarrassed or to feel bad about making a mistake, but you should keep thing in perspective.  Apologize for mistakes that affect others, but move on.  Forgive yourself.  Don’t beat yourself up because everyone makes mistakes.  But I do think it’s important to own your mistakes and to apologize for them, because there are too many people out there who don’t take responsibility for anything, and think that there is always someone else out there who is more responsible than they will ever be.  I am, however, thinking more and more that it is not appropriate to ask for forgiveness from others.  I know from my own experience that forgiving someone for something they have done (when it is really bad – most of the time, forgiveness is easy because people generally don’t do things that I feel need to be forgiven, if you know what I mean) is PERSONAL.  Yes, I used all caps.  I needed to work through a lot of things myself before forgiving people who harmed me, but it was my choice, and it had nothing to do with letting them off the hook (people need to be held accountable), or wanting to be around them ever again, or trusting them ever again (trust needs to be earned, and once it’s lost, may or may not ever be earned again – it has NOTHING to do with forgiveness).

Anyway, I didn’t mean for a post about humiliation to become a rant about forgiveness.  How humiliating!  What I’m trying to say is that sometimes you just need to let go of perfectionism, forgive yourself for being human, and apologize to others if you need to.  Embrace your mistakes, celebrate your humiliation, and get on with your life!

Time for beer!