First the quotes:
“Oh, we were so crazy in college!”
“What a nutty bunch of people we are!”
“Don’t get me started because I am so crazy.”
“We girls are so crazy when we get together!”
“We guys are so crazy, yahoo!”
“Get us all together, baby, and it is crazy time!”
I am sure you have all heard people — maybe even yourself — proclaim how crazy you are or were or continue to be. Or when you were younger or in school or last week you shouted to the rooftops or to waiters or bartenders or waitresses: “We are so crazy.”
Everyone who proclaims they are crazy is like everyone else who proclaims they are crazy. They aren’t crazy. They are just typical. No different than all the others saying, “Oh, we are so crazy.” You are not crazy. Take it down a notch.
Really crazy people — and I have met really crazy people — usually don’t delight in calling themselves crazy to impress others who can see clearly that these truly crazy folks are really crazy, I mean really, really crazy. It’s not, “Oh, we girls are partying tonight, aren’t we so crazy!” Truly crazy people say (usually to some voice in their head or some emotion welling up in their tortured hearts), “That dirty prick, I am going to hurt him!” Or, “Let me punch myself in the face because Daddy didn’t love me.”
The really crazy don’t usually share their craziness with waiters, “Oh, I am so crazy, I just killed five people at my bible class! Aren’t you impressed?”
So stop being the type who proclaims craziness as some good quality for which others will be impressed. You aren’t crazy; you are just going out to dinner; you are just going out for a few drinks; you are just enjoying a party. You are not crazy. You are not slitting someone’s throat from ear to ear.
[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!]