Be Silly
Life is too short to always been serious.
Life can be so dreadful sometimes. I know we are going through a very rough period right now and the news can be pretty tragic and depressing. But like any serious movie or book there needs to be a comic break or we have trouble continuing to watch or read. Or like conversations with friends we need to have light moments or we will approach every interaction with dread and avoid them.
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Humor doesn’t always pop up by itself. We have to be intentional about it. And that means we have to train ourself to be aware, to alter our perspective to alert our senses to detect it. It’s not that we laugh at tragedy or ignore the hurt. I have a friend in Toastmasters who defined humor in a unique way. He said “pain plus time equals humor”. He also said that a good source for humor was reflecting on our failures. With the right amount of time our perspective changes and we can laugh at ourselves.
Two key points. Depending on the type and degree of pain we may need more time. And the best place to start is with ourselves — laugh at ourselves first. Join in laughing with others only when they are ready to laugh. And remember that somethings are just not laughable. Many people jab at others and say “I was just joking”. That is a red flag.
Think of it this way -laughter is like taking a deep breath. Serious pain, like fear, can cause us to lose our breath. Taking deep breaths helps us to relax and resume our normal breathing. Laughter does the same thing — restarts our normal thought patterns and helps bring balance to the force of our perspective.
Sometimes the best thing we can do is to combat fear and anxiousness (and sadness) is to be absurd — to laugh at the bullies in our lives because we know bullies are cowards (even in our own minds). They have no sense of self-worth and so aim to take others down to try to lift themselves up. But we do not have to be victims. And we need to be proactive in protecting others.
So be silly, seek to see and speak the absurd. Be brave in the face of danger. It can release stress. I clearly remember times around the dinner table growing up that we laughed until our stomachs hurt — couldn’t stop, often couldn’t breath until we were gasping. The funny thing is, I don’t remember what we were laughing about, I just remember the feeling and love the memory.
