At the suggestion of a friend a few weeks ago, I started searching for online video clips by a humorist he knows personally. Inquiring about her name, when I heard, "Jeanne Robertson, Jeanne Swanner Robertson," it triggered a distant memory. Was she Miss North Carolina some years back?
As it turns out, yes, this delightful woman was crowned Miss North Carolina the same year I graduated from high school and started college. Why did I remember Jeanne Flinn Swanner, when I could name only one other North Carolina pageant winner in all these years? Two things came to mind - her height and her humility. I recalled that she was attractive and talented but not the typical beauty queen mold. Seemingly unimpressed with herself, while easily engaging with others, it was no surprise that she came out of the Miss America Pageant as Miss Congeniality.
Her "flat-out funny" presentations on YouTube and through her website have provided laugh-out-loud entertainment for me and clearly also for a host of others, as demonstrated by audiences in her live performances and the number of hits on her video posts. Amidst the humorous anecdotes from her own lived experience, the primary takeaway from Jeanne's speeches is that humor is all around and if we look for it, we'll find it. Her antenna is always scanning the airwaves for laughable tidbits, which she spins marvelously into material for her speaking engagements.
There's a key underlying element in the way Jeanne Robertson delivers humor. She is careful not to diminish or hurt anyone. The perceived object of her hilarious stories could be any one of us, and imagining ourselves in that spot does not make us feel less than or put down. I suspect this is the same respectful spirit that appealed to those who named her Miss Congeniality in 1963. Humility and harmless humor seem to go together.
Along with enjoyment of Jeanne's humor, I have appreciated the reminder that we usually do find what we look for, period. Often I find myself going for the deeper angle, not so much what's floating on the airwaves as what may be hiding under the table. There's usually something going on behind the scenes, and often it holds some piece of wisdom that can be universally applied.
From this humorist and the way she goes about her work, my deeper takeaway is that the attitude from which we begin our search matters also in what we find. We can start from any perspective and go in any direction. We may look out from a critical eye that helps by assessing and refining certain situations or that hurts by finding fault and judging certain people. We may lean more toward acceptance and find a way of framing every circumstance in a positive way. We can start from a place of congeniality or hostility or somewhere in between. We have options.
The filter that Jeanne Robertson applies to her humorous presentations is a model, it seems, for what to say or do in any moment, whether directed at a situation or a person: Will this hurt anyone? Many things are beyond our control, but we do get to choose what we intend - and to a great degree, what we find.
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