Your Own Personal Good Friday

You are not the worst story that you can tell about yourself.

Woody Allen once said something like, “My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.”

Humor has a way of delivering hard and tender truths that we might otherwise fend off. Satirists coax us into lowering our guard with the promise of a good laugh. The best among them can make us laugh until we cry. Their words release the tears we’ve kept bottled up in some deep and painful place within us.

At a few points in my life, I have not been who I wanted to be. I don’t mean that I didn’t receive the job I sought or the grade I studied to make or the trophy I raced to win.

I mean that I let myself down by letting other people down. I had wanted to be someone else. Someone worthy of admiration and respect. A person of honor and courage. And I wasn’t. The story I could tell about myself was nothing short of an indictment. I suppose that’s what we mean by shame.

When I was much younger, a friend of mine was in dire trouble. He needed someone to walk with him through a tough time. Afraid of be…