Share Some Laughter – Part 2

I remember reading something interesting in a science fiction book a number of years ago. The gist of the story was that a man was returned to the world, who had grown up on another world, amongst aliens. Because of this, he had trouble understanding the most basic human actions and reactions. One of the things he struggled with was understanding laughter.

What I really remember about that story was the way he explained laughter when he finally understood it. He said that people didn’t laugh because things were funny, as everyone had explained to him; people laughed because it hurt, and they were laughing to make it stop hurt.

If you think about it a minute, much of what we laugh at are things that hurt. A comic slips on a banana peel, and we laugh as he falls; a joke that talks about how foolish someone is in a particular situation; a picture of a car that someone has driven off the dock into a boat. They are all painful situations, ether physically or emotionally.

All of us pass trough painful situations, it’s part of life. How we face those situations says a lot about us, and how we help others face them says even more. We can either help them though those situations, lightening their load, or we can become part of the problem, making their load all that much harder to bear.

One of the ways we can help our wives through a difficult situation is to find the humor in that situation and help her see it. Granted, she may not be in the mood to laugh at that exact moment, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t need to laugh. In fact, laughter is one of the best stress relievers there is. By helping her laugh in the midst of that difficult situation, we can help her not only get through it, but overcome it.

How do you find humor in a situation? One way is to talk about how you could explain it to another person. Take a situation where your mother-in-law is a world class champion worrier. If you can help your wife see what it would be like to explain that situation, after the fact, to her mother, it could bring some humor into it. Or, how about trying to see the ridiculousness of your comedy of errors, as if you were watching it in a movie. If you can see it that way, you suddenly see the humor of it. More importantly, you can help your wife see it that way.

It’s always easier to make it through a situation if you can find a way to laugh your way through it. Not only will you be free of the stress, but you will be better able to make good decisions. Ultimately, that will help your relationship with your wife, your family and your life.

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?