“I need more humour in my life,” my girlfriend stated with a sigh. She expressed what we all, at times, feel: a good laugh is needed, but seems hard to come by. We decided to take decisive action; share silly internet links, go and watch live comedy, send random texts that are surprising and funny and often not repeatable. Simple things like this DO lift one’s spirits. Why should laughter be any less important in one’s life than say, brushing one’s teeth? Both help with your smile, in the end. As well all know, life is really busy, so I am starting to think we need to PLAN it.
Step A: Find some people who are funny. Say to someone you really like, “Hey! You’re really funny! We should hang out sometime!” Emboldened by your compliment, they might just take you up on it. (If they back away slowly and never speak to you again, this may not be the friend you are looking for). Make sure to tell your new pal your “friend requirements.” I only have one. If there is something hanging out of my nose or wedged in my teeth, you have to tell me. This is both useful and ultimately funny. You can’t laugh with others if you can’t laugh at yourself.
Step B: Find time for a bit of ridiculousness. It is hard to pencil in “ridiculous time” on the calendar so you might just have to take the opportunity when it arises. The other say I was at the grocery store with a friend, and we spied some enormous, knotty ginger roots. I put two of them on my head and said, “Hey! I’m a reindeer!” Then we laughed and laughed because stupid things that are funny in forth grade are still funny today. This also works with people you don’t know. While filling out my new chiropractors form, I had to pencil in the parts of the body that hurt. I did, and added some Richard Simmons hair to the naked man. (He looked so cold, without any hair or clothing) The secretary took in the form and then snorted with laughter, she couldn’t stop laughing. This was approximately three seconds worth of effort that resulted in us joking around every time I see them. I call this the “domino silliness effect.” These are just examples, I’m sure you have more.
Step C: Actually, scratch that…you can plan silliness. While home this past summer, a good friend of the family explained how she was driving up to meet her niece at a winery. Her niece was entering a contest where you had to dress up like Lucille Ball, get into a huge barrel of grapes, and stomp them like Lucy in one of her more famous episodes. This was the best thing I’d ever heard, TRUE ridiculousness planning! But if you don’t have a contest like this near home, you can find other goofy things to get involved in. There’s always Halloween, an Ugly Sweater party, the polar bear dip. There are naked running contests, that thing where they roll down huge wheels of cheese in the Highlands, and all sorts of various opportunities if you’ve had too much to drink. There’s even Movember, where dudes can pretend they look like Magnum P.I. (I’m sorry, some of you look like porn stars or pedophiles, but you are raising money for prostate cancer so it’s all good) My daughter pointed out that I too, have a moustache. Sadly, it is year-round.
Step D: “BUT WHAT IF IM NOT VERY FUNNY?” you ask. Don’t be silly. Of course you are. Do you like funny things? Do you secretly watch Russell Peters, laughing at all the off color jokes that you yourself could never say? Do you, in private, watch America’s funniest Home videos, so you can see people get whacked in the nuts by their two year olds plastic baseball bat, or the other three thousand other versions of this sketch? Of course you do. This is called “silliness by proximity” and it actually rubs off, like an iridescent sheen. The more you seek out the silly, the more it seeps into you. Soon, you will be looking to the “The Onion” for the news, rather than the BBC or CNN. (www.theonion.com) Slowly, you will find more and more things amusing in your life. You will chase the children around with shaving cream on, you will answer the door in hair curlers. And humors shy sibling, kindness, is never far behind. So if you aren’t feeling the funny, you can always just go with a smile in someone’s direction, for no reason. That too, is increasingly hard to come by.
Step D is…practice.