Dear Social Activists, I Want You To Hold On To Your Sense Of Humour!

People working in the social sector, especially those whose lives are dedicated to social change relating to extremely challenging issues, tend to become very serious over time. In my opinion, their sense of humour fades away every single day while addressing these challenging issues.

The general understanding among many social activists is that if you wish to work on social change you have to remain ‘serious’ because you are addressing serious problems. However, I believe that it is not necessary to be so serious in all areas of your life, just because you are a change-maker working on tough issues!

Often, when I meet people for the first time, I leave the impression that I am a ‘non-serious’ person who does not have any ‘serious’ commitment to working on social issues. This is because I work really hard to ensure that my sense of humour doesn’t fade away. I don’t introduce myself as a ‘serious’ person. Actually, there is no rule that you can’t be funny and cannot laugh while being 100% committed to social change. Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela lead some of the most significant social movements in our history, and their sense of humour is well known.

I have stopped interacting with some of the finest and most committed individuals only because they have no sense of humour. They remain serious all the time, and when their efforts lead to positive results, they find something negative even in those positive results. Ultimately, they take everything so seriously that they forget to celebrate, dance, and, sometimes, they even forget to smile.

People already have so much negativity and sadness in their lives and that is why change-makers are working with them to begin with. Many times, we add more negativity to people’s lives by being serious all the time, unnecessarily. I think this attitude will not help our communities to sustain social change movements, long-term.

‘Fun is a serious business’. I read this beautiful line at a workshop conducted by the youth-focused organisation Pravah. In fact, Pravah calls it a ground rule in every single workshop or training session they conduct, because they believe that fun is one of the most important values of a true leader. It made me believe that a sense of humour is the best fuel we have to go the extra mile in our vision for social change.

Remember, we get from life what we give to life, and subsequently, we get from communities what we give to communities. If we maintain a good sense of humour while working on serious issues, we will get positive results. And even if we don’t always get lucky, and do not get those desired results, we will be far more positive about accepting undesirable results.

As young change-makers, the golden rule is to consider fun as serious business!

I hope this small note will not ‘seriously’ offend ‘serious’ social activists  ???