Posted on 12 Nov, 2008 -
Earth laughs in flowers
Stop taking everything so seriously and put more laughter into your life including:
- One of the biggest secrets of happiness: to see the funny side of everything
- The easiest way to be funny and make others like you
- 3 of the funniest jokes ever
One of the key ingredients of a happier life is the ability to laugh at one’s misfortunes. If we can remind ourselves from time to time not to take everything or ourselves so seriously then we can lighten the load of our stresses and benefit from the curative effect of laughter.
I was reminded of this recently myself when I was feeling particularly miserable one morning about the rather shoddy job the painters had made of my windows.
As we were walking to school (me with a face like thunder, the woe of the world on my shoulders), a cat suddenly leaped out in front of us from under a bush and shot across the road.
“Go cat!” shouted my youngest daughter spontaneously, “You’re going to be late!”
I’m sure it’s a case of ‘you had to be there’ but we all burst out laughing and couldn’t stop laughing until we got to school. Suddenly it felt so silly that I had been so disproportionately upset about some slightly bodged paintwork and the heaviness lifted from me.
The more you laugh, the better you will feel
The earth, said Ralph Waldo Emerson, laughs in flowers.
Laughter, it is said, is the best ever medicine. It increases your endorphin levels, raises your immunity, lowers your cholesterol, releases muscular tension and even massages your internal organs. I once even read a story about a man who cured himself of cancer by watching Laurel and Hardy movies.
Whenever we laugh we feel better about ourselves, our lives and everyone around us. It bonds us to our friends and work colleagues. Creates colour in a dull day. And instantly helps to relieve any emotional tension we’re feeling.
So how can we create more laughter in each day?
- We are far more likely to laugh when we are with others than when we are alone so seek out the company of friends and take with you each time you see them the gift of a new joke you have discovered. (Just put the word ‘jokes’ into Google and I promise that within a couple of minutes you’ll feel instantly happier.)
- Go about your daily life always ready for a laugh or a spontaneous smile. Laugh at yourself. Laugh at others. Laugh with children. Laugh at life. Everything has a funny side if you’re prepared to look for it. (Try, as an experiment, looking for the funny side of objects or pictures in your room - or things that happen to you in the day.)
- Laugh at your own disasters and the relative insignificance of most of your problems. In fact, if you bear in mind that pain (or people getting hurt) is the basis for much humour, then you’ll even be able to see the funny side of the most awful situations. As the film producer James Cameron once said, “While other people’s deaths are deeply sad, one’s own is surely a bit of a joke.” By laughing at events or situations you get to be outside of them looking in rather than stuck painfully inside of them.
- Create fun and laughter at work. You don’t have to be a ‘funny person’ to make other people laugh or enjoy themselves. Organise a day where people get to dress up and impersonate the boss. Have a cork board where people can pin up jokes. Get people to do silly things for charity (always a great excuse for fun!)
- Smile as if you’re almost about to laugh.
- “Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can.” said Elsa Maxwell, the original hostess with the mostest. Or, in the words of Emma Thompson, “Laughter is a celebration of our failings. That’s what clowns are for. And that’s what I am.”
- One of the easiest ways to make other people laugh and come across as a great person yourself is to say funny things about yourself. The ability to laugh at yourself in front of others can actually even be a good route to more self-confidence and self-deprecating humour is one of the funniest of all. You need not, for example, be embarrassed about let’s say for example your desire to become a concert pianist if you make a joke about it to others. You will be a better person to be around if you make a joke about the failure of your potato crop than if you talk seriously about it as a disaster. Even making a joke about how devastated you were about it will help you feel better about it too..
And finally… SOME JOKES FOR YOU!
I am now going to risk all in the name of laughter and finish with a few jokes for you:
1. A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That’s the ugliest baby that I’ve ever seen.” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her, “That driver just insulted me!” The man says, “You go right up there and tell him off! Go ahead, I’ll hold your monkey for you.”
2. Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other man pulls out his cell phone and calls emergency services.
He gasps to the operator: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator in a calm, soothing voice replies: “Take it easy. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard.
Back on the phone, the hunter says, “OK, now what?”
3. A taxi passenger tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him a question. The driver screamed, lost control of the car, nearly hit a bus, went up on the footpath, and stopped centimeters from a shop window.
For a second everything went quiet in the cab, then the driver said, “Look mate, don’t ever do that again. You scared the daylights out of me!” The passenger apologized and said, “I didn’t realize that a little tap would scare you so much. “The driver replied, “Sorry, it’s not really your fault. Today is my first day as a cab driver. I’ve been driving a funeral van for the last 25 years.”
