I’m a fool and I’m better for it.
I woke up yesterday morning to a shock. News of a merger between Love146 and Not For Sale lit up social media, including a new website, and I didn’t know anything about it — which is really awkward since I’m the President and Co-Founder of Love146.
I immediately called our CEO and left a bit of a blunt message basically asking, “What the heck is this about?”
You’d think that because I have six kids that I should know better.
Turns out it was an elaborate April Fools prank and I had forgotten that it was April 1st. Unbeknownst to me, the prank was planned out and executed over the weekend (not during work hours) by our CEO and Communications Strategist, along with Not For Sale’s Executive Director and communications accomplice.
I was had. Badly. I think our CEO is saving my voicemail to continue to mock my naiveté.
Which brings me to this thought… It’s important in the work that we do to take time to laugh. Even at ourselves. (Maybe mostly at ourselves.) It’s important to remember to embrace joy and celebration. To pull our heads out of the dark waters to catch a breath.
We practice this daily at Love146 by sharing lunch together every day. We sit at a huge table and on couches that face each other…and we share stories from our weekend adventures, our families, our lives. And we laugh. Sometimes until we cry. Or almost pee in our pants. It’s healing. It’s how we stay in the fight. It’s how we stay alive.
I think Gary Haugen from International Justice Mission says it best when he writes:
“We cannot ache and sweat through history’s long arc of justice without clutching life-giving stores of beauty, laughter, goodness, love and light, without snatching delicious naps in the cool grassy spots, and without late night fires with friends who make us flush and ache with laughter. To carelessly ditch the cool canteen of joy in the name of a severe urgency is to misunderstand the expedition and to render one’s self useless in the fight against aggressive evil. The grim, sophisticated, self-serious activist finds himself angry and spent and exceedingly bad company.”
So…take a moment today to laugh. To breathe. To perhaps be a fool with me. You’ll be the better for it.
Rob Morris
President & Co-Founder Love146
(t) 203-772-4420
www.love146.org
Twitter: @ROBLOVE146
