Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Laughter is a matter of perspective......

Oops! I poured diesel in the gas tank of my lawn mower. What did I do? The engine seized and it wouldn’t start. Called up for the technical help and the guy was asking me questions I had no clue about. I never tried to figure out the intricate details of these kinds of machines. I felt ashamed and embarrassed. I was looking for ways to shield myself. Then suddenly I saw a kid playing outside my house who bumped himself onto something he could have easily avoided, his friends laughed loud, the grown ups ran to find out if he was ok but that kid got up and joined his friends in laughing at himself. His laughter was a shield for him. He wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed for his mistake, his face was radiant with laughter and the kids were cheering him by calling him cool, funny..

The biggest ability a person can have is to be able to laugh at oneself. That laughter and that smile can do wonders to pull you out of that stressful situation and can invigorate your mind. Whenever I get stressed out I choose to laugh. And the funniest thing is, when I choose to do so, there are a millions of things that I can find to laugh about and they all happen to be mostly about me or about my own situation. The goof ups , the mistakes and sometimes the blunders I commit, they all look funny if I choose to look at them that way. I laughed out loud at what I did with my lawn mower and felt really good. In fact things look a lot easier, the answers start popping right in front of you because the mind is so relaxed. It is all a matter of perception.

Substantial research indicates that humor and laughter play a role in exercising the internal organs, getting more oxygen to the brain, boosting endorphin level, strengthening the immune system, and improving the optimism and outlook about his or her overall well being. We all read that and move on and start wondering but how can I be happy under these circumstances? I am not upset for no reason ? It's my horrible situation which makes me feel like that! Although, talking helps, no doubt about it. But that is a temporary stress buster. Just letting the steam off your shoulder does not put off the fire burning inside you. You have to pour the stream of positivism to extinguish that fire to ashes. And that can only be possible when we have the perspective to look at things in the lighter way and be able to laugh at ourselves. Being able to do so have the power to pull oneself out of any rut. “Don’t we have enough worries and tensions already due to the high stress life we are living in? But if we had the ability to laugh then we didn’t have to falsely intoxicate ourselves to pretend to move on and to put our past behind.

Nothing lasts forever.. but if we didn’t have the ability to be happy and enjoy the things around us then I believe we lost an opportunity to seize a moment from that passing phase and make it memorable for the rest of our life.
Laugh and the world will laugh with you…That’s the biggest gift you can give to yourself!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Very true...

Sourabh Pandey said...

Wonderful article!!!!!
esp..i liked the illustration in the beginning of the article:)

it takes a lot of courage to laugh at yourself.

In life we come across many unfortunate situations where we don't undertsnad why it is happening to us and we get dysphoric instead we should laugh at the situation.

laughing at the situation would give us the strength to tackle the problems........

Laughing is best stress releif medicine we can get...