“Are you kidding me?”

[You - VIII]

The question, "Are you kidding me?" is one of the most condescending things one can be asked. It really has nothing to do with joking, humor, or playfulness. It’s an attack on one’s personhood. Using the word “kidding” is playful language to say something very hurtful, which just makes it sting even more: "You are not worth being taken seriously.”

One response is this: "No, actually. I’m not kidding. I’m serious as a surgeon.” It answers the literal question, but it doesn’t address the infraction, the offense.

To address the infraction, I must first ask myself if I am worth being taken seriously by . . . me. “Are you kidding me?” hurts particularly badly when it is an echo of the same question I ask myself—when I think of myself as unworthy.

An older and wiser friend told me once that you know you are comfortable in your own skin if from this day froward nothing changed about you and you still found delight in who’ve you become.

Perhaps the best response to the offensive question is not a response at all but a quiet delight in who I am. Now. This very moment.

Not who I am trying to become, where I am trying to go, or what I am trying to do. But who I am.

(Oh, and yes, I take myself seriously.)