Your shoes are untied… made you look!
I mean seriously, how can we resist when we have to write a Monday Morning Stretch for April Fool’s Day! But, where did all this foolishness about April 1st come from? We did a little research and here’s what we found:
Historians speculate that April Fools’ Day dates back to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes. These pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as poisson d’avril (April fish), said to symbolize a young, “easily hooked” fish and a gullible person.
April Fools’ Day spread throughout Britain during the 18th century. In Scotland, the tradition became a two-day event, starting with “hunting the gowk,” in which people were sent on phony errands (gowk is a word for cuckoo bird, a symbol for fool) and followed by Tailie Day, which involved pranks played on people’s derrieres, such as pinning fake tails or “kick me” signs on them.
In 1985, Sports Illustrated tricked many of its readers when it ran a made-up article about a rookie pitcher named Sidd Finch who could throw a fastball over 168 miles per hour.
In 1996, Taco Bell, the fast-food restaurant chain, duped people when it announced it had agreed to purchase Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell and intended to rename it the Taco Liberty Bell. In 1998, after Burger King advertised a “Left-Handed Whopper,” scores of clueless customers requested the fake sandwich.
Funny stuff. Here’s our list for things we think are just plain foolish on any day of the year:
- Worrying
- Comparisons
- Jealousy
- Regrets
- Hatred
- Resentment
- Rigidity
- Judgements
- Scarcity mentality
- Not booking your seat at one of our upcoming workshops (details below)
- Inspirational Speaker’s Workshop
- Transformational Trainer’s Workshop
- Leaders of the Pride Workshop
Here’s a list of what we feel entirely justified feeling a bit foolish about anytime, anywhere:
- Love
- Fun
- Generosity
- Acceptance
- Living in the present moment
- Faith
- Flexibility
- Gratitude
- Babies (of any kind!)
- A sense of humor
- Kindness
- Always having something REALLY fun to look forward to on our calendars!
- Snakes (okay… April Fools!)
Today, have some fun but always be kind in your distribution of April Fool’s Day pranks. And, we hope your first week of April is full of all kinds of fun things to feel foolish about!