I saw a video link on Facebook the other day about a televison news item and the dangerous icy conditions. It showed a man slipping and banging his head off the ground. The responses to the video were generally:“ha ha ha so glad that wasn’t me making a fool of myself” and other similar comments. Three of my friends had posted this video and I commented on all three posts that Ididn’t think it was funny at all.

I encouraged the posters (and respondants to add forty years to the age of the poor man and see if they still would laugh). One respondant has un-friended me after refuting my post and maintains their position that someone else’s misfortune is indeed – in their eyes – funny, nice concept – I wonder would they feel the same if their fortune were to suddenly take a nosedive and everyone else found it funny? The other two posts have similar comments that it is funny. I then posted the video link with the following quote from a contact of mine above it in a bid to see how others would react to it:

“Any time you see something laughable look again, you are looking at a repressed/dissociated part of yourself. If people laugh they are laughing at themselves. We don’t have issues with and react externally to the traits which we have accepted, integrated and loved in ourselves, when we understand that we all have all the human traits and any judgement is self-judgement.”

It seems to have hit the nerve I thought it would and got the following responses:

“Hahahaha! We are evil laughing at him but so funny! I bet he regrets going for that walk! lol”,

“Ah please don’t take self help so seriously. Laughter and humour is a great source of medicine. The guy was ok, sure didn’t he get up. I’m laughing and having a good laugh at myself too, if that makes you happier!!! Sure I’ll probably fall on my arse to morrow and that will be Karma!!”

“I think the lesson here is, if you must fall spectacularly just make sure you don’t do it on the telly!! I’ll be giving camera crews a very wide berth personally – I was never very good on me’ feet”.

Now had the guy landed on his backside I could see the funny side of it, but to laugh at someone losing their balance on packed ice and knocking their head off that ice is in my honest opinion not even remotely funny. It’s got nothing to do with self-help and taking it seriously, it’s got nothing to do with making a fool of yourself in public either, I don’t think he did make a fool of himself. It haseverything to do with the basic concern for the welfare for another

human being’s misfortune. Part of my concern arises from the fact that my brother’s partner broke his arm slipping on ice on Christmas Day and two other friends have broken limbs since then doing the exact same thing and they are all my age or younger and packed ice is dangerous and not everyone can avoid going out in it all the time. It has gotten me thinking about laughing at other people’s misfortune and why we do it. I agree with the quote above. Everything we react to – not just laughter – is a mirror of what we are experiencing, so on a subliminal level we see ourselves falling, others laughing at us and to cover up our embarrassment at feeling foolish we also laugh! Unless of course you don’t see yourself falling, or don’t feel foolish, in which case your reason to laugh is gone.

The same principle can be applied to when we get annoyed. When someone annoys you, look inside you to find what is causing that annoyance. No, I’ve not completely lost my mind! They are simply reflecting back at you a part of yourself that you don’t like, which is why you are having such a strong reaction to it, you unconsciously recognise that part of you, try to ignore it, but it niggles away at you and doesn’t go away, hence you get annoyed with the trigger – the other person.  That for so many people is a really hard pill to swallow.

They see something horrific like a murder reported on the television and react to it. Then they read this and say “I’m NOTHING like that, I’d NEVER murder anyone like they did!!!”Maybe they wouldn’t, but they have accepted in another part of their life the same boundary crossing on something else. A perfect example of this was a woman who said she couldn’t abide violence, yet extremely violent people kept coming into her life. She was a peace  loving person and found these people quite annoying and disturbing. When probed on where in her life extreme violence was acceptable, she at first said “nowhere” and when questioned even further, it turned out that she often thought about what she would do if anyone threatened (not actually attacked) her children and she said she would kill without a second thought!! She was stunned to find that she had such extreme violent plans for an event that might never happen. So at an unconscious level she was quite prepared to accept violence but didn’t like it and was attracting it to her and it was annoying her.

So when someone annoys you, say “Thank You” and go off and ask yourself “where else in my life do I accept this type of boundary being crossed?” Back to the person who unfriended me, I wonder what part of themself was reflected in me that they don’t like and will they thank me for exposing it? I won’t hold my breath!!!