Belly Laugh!
Hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors. -Norman Cousins (1915-1990), prominent political journalist, author and professor. Authored Anatomy of an Illness that chronicled how he overcame a seemingly terminal illness through alternative methods including laughter.
I’d like to start this post off by apologizing to all my fans and admit that during the years between 2002 and 2004, I did in fact take performance enhancing drugs! I thought that by taking these drugs I could move swiftly through the world of mediocrity and ascend quickly into the inner circle of the rich and famous! I would hope that you judge me only from this point forward and realize that I am back to being a working stiff and bleeding through the recession just like the rest of you! While I do miss being 6’5″ and looking like a gorilla in a bathing suit, I do feel much less pressure knowing that it’s just plain old okay to be a “real person” again!!
HAHAHA!!! Get it? Ridiculous eh? But seriously…why can’t we find humor in everything that happens? With the sports world in turmoil over the fact that…hey news flash…you might not believe this…but there are hundreds, thousands and probably the majority of professional athletes taking drugs to gain the tiniest of edges to leapfrog to the elusive brass ring and swing from the tree tops! Didn’t you notice a long time ago that a few German female athletes looked a little too “manly?” It’s everywhere…but why not find it funny? Why do we sit in front of the TV waiting to chastise the next exposed person like an angry, disappointed parent…you know why?! Because you’ve got nothing better to do!
Seriously, get off the couch and go do something fun! Watch a ridiculous movie and laugh your tail off! Go skiing with some friends and fall on your backside and laugh until you pee your pants! Listen to a bunch of kids mimic adults and laugh with them like you’re all a bunch of clowns! More importantly learn to laugh at yourself…all the ridiculous things that you do and say…just laugh! Why is it such a tragic blow to your self esteem when you screw up…like you even know anybody who’s perfect…if you do, bring them to us and we’ll hold them up for the whole world to see!
So right now we have some cranky, angry, mad-at-the-world types reading this saying that I’m wrong…you’ve got to take life very seriously! You better not fool around or the world will not accept you…you won’t get the right job, the right friends, the right school!! Hey, aren’t there a lot of happy, wealthy comedians out there that didn’t go to Harvard, work at IBM or hang with the “in crowd?” You know why…because they know what you need…a good laugh…and you’ll pay for it!
Consider the case of Norman Cousins who after having lost movement in his body retreated to a hotel room and ingested large doses of humor…that’s right…a whole bunch of funny movies and books! You’ll find plenty of naysayers that degrade Cousins and say it was simply the passing of the disease by itself, but let’s have those knuckleheads consider what that word says: “dis” – “ease”…aka not comfortable, or how about miserable! You don’t have to do too much in depth research to find out that laughter boosts the immune system by releasing stress relieving hormones into the body! Ever had a cut on your hand that mysteriously heals itself?…Hello! You have a built in repair system and you just need to know how to turn it on!
How about you? Think about the last time you took a break to have a laugh with some family or friends? If you have, I bet you’ll quickly put a smile on your face when you conjure up the images of all the nonsensical fun you had. Maybe I’m always reliving some kind of glory years, but every time I get together with my college buddies we still can’t stop talking about all the ridiculous times we had and then we go out and create some more! Laughter bonds us in the most positive way!
So here is my challenge…go have laugh for yourself! I don’t care whether your with friends or all alone! Get on the internet, go rent a movie from the comedy section, go act like a kid…just laugh and don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself most importantly! You know why? We all fall down! We’re all a bunch of clowns! And the ones that are not are downright boring! Seriously, what are we all trying to accumulate? Where are we taking it? Why do we think that it’s important to achieve at all costs? I’m not provoking the next 70′s style anti-establishment revolt…I’m just challenging you to have some fun…how sad would it be to read your own eulogy and hear: “Hey, I was a nice person but was way too caught up in my own world…I did everything to kick and claw my way to the top no matter who I destroyed on the way…and I won!…I did!…I had more gold than anybody else…but come to think of it I had no fun…I don’t even remember the last time I had a good time…I think I can remember laughing a couple times as a kid but then it ended…I do remember feeling a bit better when I started taking those “make me happy drugs”…but I really can’t remember having some real fun!”
Don’t let this be you today or any day! Find something you’d love to do for fun…screw it up and just laugh! Find someone who knows how to smile and run free and let them show you the way once in a while! I’ll never forget a girl saying to me once upon a misdirected-time-ago in my life: Danny, why don’t you ever take your shoes off and walk in the tall grass?!! She reminded me to belly laugh…so I’m reminding you to go get your laugh on!
P.S. Just in case you forgot how to belly laugh watch this whole thing!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Y4keqTV6w
