When you think about joy what comes into your mind first? For me, it’s a smile. Besides joy, humor can bring that same smile on our faces if not a bigger one. Even when it’s serious, humor makes it better.
Can you think about bad situation that cannot be improved with humor? Of course, it needs to be well placed and it shouldn’t offend anyone, so it requires some skill. If we think about it, being able to make somebody laugh it’s a serious skill. That’s why stand-up comedy exists.
Before making other people laugh, we need to be able to make ourselves laugh. That is a skill that would improve our life. Each situation, no matter how bad it is, can be improved with humor (e.g. “You broke your leg? Sh*t! You walk like a pirate!” ). But we need to really pay attention when we use it. We can use it with ourselves all the time, but when it’s about others and their bad situations, we can screw things up really bad and really quick.
Learning to make yourself laugh it’s the cheapest way to have a happy life. I’m sure you have one friend or acquaintance that seems to be happy no matter what. I bet that’s because he or she is able to use humor as a way to get through times. And it’s nothing wrong with it. It doesn’t mean that person doesn’t take things seriously. It just means that he or she is able to see things from a different perspective and deal with it anyways.
If you wander how you can learn that, just stick around people like that. The more you’ll be around them, the more you’ll learn to apply the same perspective to your life. Our own mind might not be strong enough to go against all the negativity that is around us. We need help to deal with it.
How would your life look life if you use more humor?