LAUGHTER, IT'S A NATURAL HIGH

    I read the following quote by Victor Hugo this morning. "Laughter is the sun that drives the winter from the human face."

    It reminded me how much I like to laugh and how I just don't do enough of it. I believe as we move from childhood to becoming an adult we lose most of our ability to laugh and we end up taking life way too seriously. When was the last time you had a good belly laugh? For me it was last week when my cat, Cayenne, lying quietly on the window sill watching the birds in the trees outside, became frightened by something (since she can't talk I don't know what it was) and sprang straight up in the air, as if she was a cartoon, landing simultaneously on all four paws before vaulting over me to get to the floor. Then, as if nothing happened, she slowly sauntered from the room. Not only was it great acrobatics, because she didn't knock a single thing off the sill, but it was all so unexpected. My laughter peeled through the room for several minutes and when I was finished I could feel the endorphins coursing through my veins. What a natural high. But that was a week ago and although I'm sure I've chuckled somewhere in all that forgotten time, I don't often have memorable laughs, because I spend way too much time taking life too seriously.

    Voltaire said: "God is a comedian playing to an audience who is too afraid to laugh." Maybe he was right, maybe we are just too afraid to allow ourselves to laugh at all the comedy life has to offer. So where does this fear come from? It is taught. From a very early age we are told to question and self regulate ourselves and to take life more seriously. The great persona I like to call either the Judge or the Critic is notorious in all of us for sitting on our shoulders, whispering in our ears and reminding us not to make a fool of ourselves. In this country I believe it stems from the dear Puritans (remember they were run out of England because of their extremist views) whose foundation extolled the virtues of being a serious, productive member of society and that too much laughter meant one was not working hard enough. Although there is truth in being a productive member of society, I think we've taken the virtue to an extreme.

    I'm sure there are other views as to why we take life too seriously and don't laugh enough. But whatever the reason, today is a reminder that I want to laugh more. So I'm going to make a more concerted effort to do just that. First, over the next few days, I'm going to gather up things that make me laugh, whether it be cartoons (Beetle Bailey), stories (there are a million of them on the internet), TV shows (Seinfeld), or movies (Airplane). Then I'm going to get out my infamous yellow sticky pad and place LAUGH around my house to remind me to seek out laughter.

    I'd love for you to share with me your stories and laughter ideas to help me not take life so seriously. As ee cummings said, "The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." I plan not to waste another day.