Thursday, March 10, 2011

A Good Sense of Humor – Part II

Yesterday we talked about laughing at ourselves, but there’s more to having a good sense of humor than that. So today I want to talk a little bit about laughing at life. There’s a trite saying which I’m sure you’ve heard that goes, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

Personally, I prefer limeade, actually Mexican limeade, which is made with key limes; but hey, whoever made that saying obviously preferred lemons. It really doesn’t matter what we call it, we all know that life has this amazing ability to throw things at us which we’d really rather not receive. Not good things either, I’ve never run across anyone who gets upset when good things mysteriously come their way.

How we react to the bad things in life has a lot to do with how well we maintain our marriage relationship. All these romantic acts we’re doing are like making deposits into our wife’s emotional bank account. When there’s enough in her account so that she doesn’t feel emotionally bankrupt, she’s about to respond in a loving manner. However, just as we make deposits, we also make withdrawals by the negative things that we do.

All too often, we react in the wrong way to those “lemons” that life throws at us. Even worse, we react towards our spouse in a negative way, as if it was her fault. Tell me, what do we gain by doing that? Nothing. Even if it was your wife’s fault that she got in the fender bender, yelling at her about it isn’t going to help anything. Instead of just having a bent fender, you’ll have a bent fender and a bent wife. The bent fender might be her fault, but the bent wife is definitely your fault. Ouch!

I’m not saying that the bent fender isn’t important enough to be concerned about, but it’s over with. Getting mad isn’t going to help anything. That’s the time to make some lemonade. Instead of being upset about the car, be happy that your wife came through it unscathed.

Often, what happens to us is outside of our control, but how we react to it is always under our control. It’s like the guy who ended up walking by as his neighbor was throwing out the water from washing his car. He yelled at his neighbor, “You made me wet and you made me mad.” The neighbor responded, “No, I made you wet; you decided to get mad on your own.”

We decide whether we laugh at circumstances or get mad at them; nobody else can decide for us. So, why waste all that time and energy being mad, and taking it out on everyone around you. Wouldn’t it be better to take a deep breath, make lemonade and laugh a little?

Your wife will definitely feel more comfortable around you if you learn how to laugh at life’s problems. Not only that, but instead of making a withdrawal from her emotional bank account, you’ll actually be making a deposit. Isn’t that better?

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