Laughing Matters

So. The Happiness Engineers at Word Press want us to laugh and go Ha Ha Ha. They want us to share jokes with fellow bloggers. After writing my previous serious article, I myself needed to clear up the heavy air looming over my blog.

Indeed, one should laugh and make others laugh.

As the saying goes, ‘Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone’.  Going by the quote, it’s so easy to make (real or fake) friends. All you have to do is, just don’t share your problems too much but make others laugh as much as you can. That’s what a clown does. He might be crying inside his heart but he makes the whole world laugh. As also said by Charlie Chaplin,  ‘Mirror is my best friend, because when I cry it never laughs’.

Laughing is good for other reasons too. Say, if smoking a cigarette reduces life by 5 minutes and laughing increases life by 10 minutes, then a laughing smoker never dies. That was a stale joke that came into my mind. But hope you got the message. Laughter increases your longevity. The bigger the dose, the better.

Naughty Kookaburra.  image: flickr

The problem is, having a full-hearted open laugh is not so easy. People who have not laughed out loud for a long time, find it very hard to do so. To open one’s mouth wide, show one’s teeth, make a ha ha ha sound, to everyone’s hearing.  For a woman it can even be a greater challenge to decide how much to laugh, a question of looking dainty as well as a pleasant personality.

But we do come across men and women who laugh full-throttle, quite like our good-humored Australian Laughing Kookaburra does (see the birdie laughing video). In any gathering we can see such happy men and women get popular because of their hearty laugh while the demure humans go unnoticed.  So you see – there are many advantages of laughing.

Moreover, such laughter is contagious. If one Kookaburra laughs, others join in, informs Wikipedia:  ‘One bird starts with a low, hiccuping chuckle, then throws its head back in raucous laughter: often several others join in’.  Likewise, if one human laughs, can others be far behind? That is how Laughter Yoga and Laughter Clubs work.

Laughing may not come easy to everyone but smiling is not hard, for one and all. ‘If a loser smiles after losing the game, the winner loses the thrill of his victory‘. That’s the power of a Smile !  If you don’t even look like a loser, rather you look happy despite your loss, then you have almost won the game.  Even those who were happy to see you losing, who were kind of putting you down, will feel challenged and are left wondering – ‘Huh! The game was easy but this person is not an easy game’.

Moreover, after losing, if you look happy instead of crying, people will consider you a large-hearted sportsman spirit. Maybe you are not. Maybe not at all. But what’s the point telling it to the whole world?

Bah!!  What’s wrong with me? Why do I have to be philosophic even about a simple prompt like ‘Ha Ha Ha‘.  All they had asked for is a joke or a funny anecdote.  I’ll try this time.

Behind every successful man there is a woman……
Because women don’t run behind unsuccessful men!!

Hah!  Again, that was not really a joke. Was it?  Here’s a real one, straight out of my poor-jokes wardrobe:

Someone asked a ninety-five year old man:   “Even after 70 years of marriage, you still refer to your wife as…Darling…Sweety…Baby…Honey…Luv….!!!!  What is the secret of such love between you two???

The man replied:  “I forgot her name 10 yrs ago……and I’m scared to ask her.”

Did this joke make you laugh?  Well, I tried. Watch this laughing baby and try joining him in his hahaha.

Animals and children do take it easy. If laughing out loud still doesn’t come easy, at least keep smiling, and sooner or later life will be tired of upsetting you…

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No offense was meant by my joke/s towards any age-group or gender. We all have to inevitably go through various phases of life, maybe suffer things worse than Dementia, that too only if we happen to live that long.

Header:  Art by Hazel Bowman – Blessed Is The Gift Of Laughter