Life is far too important to take seriously – Oscar Wilde
Do you want to know how to entertain a Highly Sensitive Person? Give them a deep philosophical question. Tell them to talk it out. For like…an hour. Hell…make that 2 hours. Want to throw in some icing? Ask an HSP how they feel about that philosophical discussion. Oh holy Hera….
Deep and meaningful conversations like that are to HSP as laser pointers are to kittens. Entertainment for HOURS.
I love being an HSP and I love hanging out with others who identify as being part of the same group.
But….I have to admit. We have a tendency to take things (ourselves, our lives, our dreams, our coughs, our sneezes, our nail clippings) WAAAAAY too seriously.
It’s not that we don’t know how to laugh. We definitely do. Most of the highly sensitive people I am closest to tend to come across as light hearted, warm, and humorous. At least most of the time. Or…at least…That’s what we’re like to your face. When you lay it on me and give me constructive feedback, I’ll take it with stride (on the surface). And if I think you’re getting bored in the classroom, I’ll hone in on that and find a way to make you smile. I know how to razzle-dazzle. I gots the skillz.
But trust me, when I go home, I’m very likely going to be taking an inventory of all the frownie-faces I got in class, or the off-the-cuff remarks that were said at my expense in the hallway. And most other HSP I know tell me they do the same damn thing.
And you know something? It’s helping no one. Whatever mistake you think you made…no one cares. Really. Or if they did care…by the time they got home to have dinner with their families, they stopped thinking about you altogether.
So what should we do instead? Well…if at all possible…try to laugh.
Don’t know how?
Well…maybe try taking a tip from Jeff Ross (who was a brave enough soul to enter an entire room of highly sensitive people and try to make them crack a smile).
Learn how to leverage laughter as a means of surviving a less-than-sensitive world.
