Nobody is youer than you.

Are you censoring yourself for the sake of others?

“Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you!” - Dr. Seuss

Theodor Geisel was the writer of the famous Dr. Seuss series. For some weird reason, even though he outsold all of his adult writer peers, they never gave him the respect he deserved.
 
So on November 16th 1952, he published an inspiring article in the New York Times. Here are some excerpts.
 
“When you were a kid… the one thing you did better than anyone else was laugh. The one thing you got more fun out of than anything else was laughing. Why, I don’t know. Maybe it had something to do with juices. And when somebody knew how to stir those juices for you, you really rolled on the floor. Remember? Your sides almost really did split. Remember? You almost went crazy with the pain of having fun…
 
And, then, what happened? You know what happened. The grown-ups began to equip you with shutters… they decided your humor was crude and too primitive. You were laughing too loud, too often and too happily. It was time you laughed with a little more restraint… ”Now why,” they asked, “are you laughing at that? “Nonsense,” they told you…
 
Your imagination, they told you, was getting a little bit out of hand…
They began to teach you their versions of humor. And the process of destroying your spontaneous laughter was under way.
 
Your laughs, unfortunately, began to get mixed with sneers and smirks.
You began to laugh at people your family feared or despised – people they felt inferior to, or people they felt better than.
 
As adults, before you laugh, you ask yourselves questions: “Do I dare laugh at that in the presence of the boss?”… ”How loud shall I laugh at that one?”… “Shall I come right out and say I thought the book was funny? The reviewer in The Times said the humor was downright silly.”
 
That, I think, is why maverick humorists prefer to write exclusively for children.”
 
Do you do what you do because you believe it is right? Or because the people around you want you to do it that way?

Morty Silber, CEO

Mad Strategies Inc.
a Wizard of Ads Partner