When I Try to Impress People

It was the first night of the conference. I’d psyched myself up for this moment for months. The worship portion went perfectly, and now it was time for a game and some emceeing by the team and me.

I’d created a really cool piece of equipment for the game. I’d used a device called a Makey Makey to hook up Play-Do to my computer. It worked like a buzzer system for the contestants…plus it felt cool that I made it myself.

I set up the system quickly and ran through a test while my teammates were talking, only to find out it didn’t work. “Um…it’s not working.” Who’d have thought a couple of pieces of Play-Do hooked up to some wires attached to my computer wouldn’t work? It seemed fool-proof.

Thinking quickly, I said, “Here! The contestants will slap my hands in order to buzz in. I’ll replace the system.” So there I stood for about 20 minutes, spread eagle on stage in front of 1000 people I was trying to impress with my first time as director of the conference.

I actually had a sort of PTSD flashback of this moment while driving to a coffee shop this morning. And I thought back on why it was such a humiliating moment. Obviously I was embarrassed because my device didn’t work.

But the deeper cause of the humiliation was that I wanted every single person in that room to think I was awesome. And my failed equipment only gave me two options. I could either be embarrassed and make the situation awkward for the attendees. Or I could embrace self-deprecation and humiliate myself for the sake of the audience. Thus, there went any hope of dignity.

I did the right thing. But because I had the wrong motives in the first place, it became a moment of humiliation instead of a fun moment with the audience.

I’ve found, whenever I try to impress others, I open myself up to situations like this. A moment that could be a moment of grace and poise becomes all about me. Any time it’s all about me, I’m begging for disappointment.

My goal is to do things out of love for others, not to impress people. I find life’s much more enjoyable that way.

[Blog photo from Mopho.to]