Embarrassment has always been the one thing that everyone was taught to avoid.
Whether alone or with someone, most people would do anything and everything to avoid embarrassing themselves. It seems that the social conditioning for avoiding embarrassment doesn’t end with just what we’ll think about ourselves, but what others will think of as second-hand embarrassment. Many situations are undeniably embarrassing, but it seems like what we define as embarrassing in today’s day and age is far from what true embarrassment is. Just to be clear, I have no authority to tell you what is and isn’t embarrassing, but it’ll be clear why I decided to make this distinction here.Â
What is Embarrassment?Â
When most people think about something embarrassing they get an uncomfortable, cringy feeling inside, and I think most of us can agree on this. Now think about the last time something embarrassing happened to you. Did you know it was going to be embarrassing before it happened, or was it the feelings that arose after that signalled to you “yup, that was embarrassing?” Here’s the issue now; if embarrassment is accompanied by a series of feelings and discomfort, are we truly capable of determining if something is embarrassing before we experience it? Maybe we can compare the possibility of being in a certain situation to one we’ve been in before to decide if it would be embarrassing, but it still seems that there is no guarantee that something will be embarrassing without actually experiencing it.Â
Why does this distinction matter?Â
Avoiding embarrassing situations is completely normal and rational, until it’s not. What I’m referring to here are situations that we “pre-label” as embarrassing so we can avoid doing them. No, I’m not referring to falling down the stairs in front of your crush, I’m referring to instances where people avoid acting true to themselves because they believe doing so is embarrassing. Instances of not wearing a certain style of clothing, not speaking your mind during a debate, or avoiding that cold email because you’re convinced you’ll embarrass yourself. It seems that we’ve gotten to a point of calling things that are intimidating, new, or uncomfortable, as embarrassing. Not sure when and why this happened, but it’s definitely not something I want as a trend. If doing something new or scary is considered embarrassing, I would say the new trend should be to embarrass yourself as much as you can. This kind of embarrassment is what leads us to learn and experience something new, overcome fears, and grow as humans. Without going through the “embarrassment” of these situations now, you set yourself up for a process of regret for the future because of what you missed out on because you were scared of “embarrassing” yourself.Â
If you really think about it, if this is embarrassment, maybe intentionally being embarrassed will condition you to not feel (or feel less) embarrassed the next time. It seems that it might be that embarrassment is just what needs to be felt, so you understand that the cringy discomfortable feeling won’t arise the same way the next time you’re embarrassed.
So, as the title states, maybe “embarrassment” is growth, not just a feeling that we want to escape, but a feeling that represents our ability to overcome the discomfort and be more open to new discomfort.