Who Do We Choose to Be?: Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity

by Margaret J. Wheatley

Yes, these are terrifying times if we open our eyes. Yes, our heart aches for all the needless suffering and destruction. And yes, maintaining a sense of humor gives us the capacity to observe the suffering and failures with enough distance that we can see it all more clearly. Irony and humor (not sarcasm) are critical skills to wise discernment. In order to laugh, we have to take in a lot of information and see things from a different perspective. Sarcasm, on the other hand, is just observing from a distance through the eyes of cynicism. It does not connect us in any way. It does not enable action or relationship. And it is growing exponentially in this culture. Even my very young grandchildren are skilled at sarcasm. I should like to think that prehistoric man’s first invention, the first condition for his survival, was a sense of humor.