And as the stories continued to flood in I watched people slowly realizing that no one really wants to celebrate the size of your yacht/hair/waist/penis. What really brought the world together was dropping the pretense that everything is shiny and perfect so that, for a moment, we could all accept how wonderfully human we are. Surviving mortification makes you stronger and more resilient because you have no other choice but to move on. Either you can let it eat at you, or you can celebrate it and bring joy to someone else who will cringe and giggle like mad along with you. Accidentally making shit awkward is such a familiar, vulnerable, and underrated accomplishment. Here’s what I’ve learned: Whenever something truly mortifying happens, you have a choice. You can let it haunt you for the rest of your life or you can celebrate it, as today’s awkward moment is tomorrow’s fantastic story. Your mortifying story will invite other people’s stories into your world, and then suddenly there are so many of us sharing horrifying confessions that the people who don’t have awkward moments are suddenly the awkward ones and for once, we—the artless misfits—can all feel a little sorry for them as they will never join this strange community or know our secret handshake. (By the way, our secret handshake = when someone waves at you and you go to wave back but then you realize they were waving at the person behind you but then they feel awkward and try to cover it by high-fiving you but you miss their hand and accidentally high-five them in the boob and then everyone runs away quickly and we never speak of it again.) #книги