Find the humor…it’s somewhere



Notice how some people are naturally funny? To be around them is a joy. Laughter is continual, nearly infectious and it would seem they just say the most outrageously comical things. These folks are sprinkled throughout the population, probably to keep people like me from becoming hardened like cement.

Their humor comes in different flavors too. I like the dry variety—leaning a little close to cynicism. My mom was the family cynic. She could lambast politicians with a razor sharp tongue, and deliver outrageous one-liners. I recall the laughter her words elicited. I kind of admired that power.

Some people revel in practical jokes... like my dad who considered a good joke an event worth methodically planning (he, with the help of three dorm mates, carried a dilapidated outhouse onto the Husky football team's sideline during the 1954 Apple Cup---I was told it made a powerful statement. Cougars won that game, btw).

So I have humorous roots. Then why can’t I find my own humor? It must have been a recessive gene, dominated forever by my straight-laced, grim-faced, serious-paced outlook. I love a good laugh. But newspaper funnies don’t compel me. Nor do sit coms. What makes me laugh are real people in ordinary places. They look at the same thing I’m looking at and find the humor. Oh, please teach me how you do it.

I want to see life from the perspective that it need not be as serious as it has become. Trust me, I know life is not always funny. Indeed, it can be tremendously tragic. Yet, some of the best moments at funerals are when we recall the funny incidents of someone’s life.

I tend to look at something and see the problems, the funny guy sees it as a test and part of their strategy is to become bigger than it is through humor. This week’s challenge? Allowing myself to lighten up. Perhaps, some of the stress I create through worry could be the material for a funny joke….

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