Finding the Humor in Life

Life is not that fun half the time. In fact, it can be downright tragic at times and pretty depressing at others. But some people manage to stay upbeat and smiling throughout it all. How do they keep their sense of humor?

Some people figure we are born with the ability to laugh in the face of tragedy, while others are born without that marvelous ability. They might be right, but there is no reason we can't learn to look for the humor in everyday things.

Children are a great example of finding humor in small events. By the age of three or four, the average child is laughing about 300 times a day! That's a lot of laughter considering that life just doesn't seem that funny to us adults. But kids live life in the moment and they live it hard. One minute, a toddler will be crying as if his heart was broken because his ice cream fell on the floor, the next he is giggling hysterically at a silly face his mother makes.

We could take a good lesson from children. When something remotely funny appeals to you, why not laugh? Adults tend to hold in their humor and suppress it, feeling that it isn't appropriate to laugh at something like an umbrella turning inside out, a sight that would send any child into fits!

To find the humor in your life, even when things are getting you down, it is a great idea to spend some time with a child or two. If you don't have any of your own, you can borrow some nieces or nephews or even a friend's children for an hour or two and take them to the zoo or the park. They are bound to point out some very funny sights to you.

Humor is in the little details, like the way an elephant scuffs his trunk on the ground, or the manner in which a giraffe licks its nose. If you still have troubles laughing at things like this after a few hours with children, it is time for more serious humor therapy.

Get online and look up "Funny videos". There are hilarious home videos and foreign ads up all over the internet, but especially in places like YouTube and other similar sites. Try watching a couple of funny videos each day to get your humor back. You can also rent commercial comedies, but the unscripted ones are usually best for getting you to really break down and laugh.

Laughter is contagious, so try watching funny videos or reading cartoons with another person. When one laughs, the other will probably follow suit quickly, since it is pretty hard not to laugh when the person beside you is howling away!

It is possible to learn to find humor in your life. It just takes a bit of effort if you weren't born with that special ability to laugh at everything that comes your way. And just a bit of laughing per day will go a long ways toward making you feel better about life in general.