How many times do you laugh a day? Don’t know? Set a goal to laugh at least three times a day. Being able to laugh is similar to maintaining good physical or mental condition: you have to put some effort in. If you don’t exercise and watch what you eat, your body will suffer. If you are not challenging your mind, your mental faculties with deteriorate. Likewise, if you are not consciously pursuing laughter, you’ll notice that you are laughing less and less and maybe not at all.
You need to create an alertness about you to find humor. You could seek humor in simple ways such as looking up jokes on the internet or reading the funnies in the newspaper. Our Chihuahuas often crack me up. The most interesting humor for me, though, and the humor that triggers my laughter the most is observing people being funny just going about their business. Accordingly, I’m making it a point in my life to be alert and looking for those funny moments when people say funny things or do funny things. Even when people behave in a way that ordinarily might be irritating, humor is one of the lenses I am trying to use more often to perceive the behavior. Newscaster Dan Harris once asked Eckhart Tolle if it would upset him if he were cut-off in traffic. Tolle responded that he does not personalize a gust of wind. That is a fantastic response, and what might be even better than not personalizing being cut-off in traffic would be finding humor in it–like when one pulls up behind the same car at the next stoplight!
So make it a goal to build your laughter skills. Consider what makes you laugh and then hunt for it! Shoot for laughing at least three times a day and see where it takes you. How does it change the way you experience your life? How does it change others around you? We’re only here for a little while; laughter should be part of our stay.
P. Gustav Mueller, Author of The Present