Humor is infectious. It lightens burdens, inspires hope, connects us to others, increases our insight, keeps us grounded, focused, alert, and happy.
Laughter is a universal language that stimulates both sides of the brain. It allows us to get messages quicker and remember them longer. We all learn more when we are having fun. Writing this blog is a creative exploration in sharing thoughts that make me laugh, smile, or think. Thinking is the source of laughter. Welcome and have a nice day!
Do you step back and laugh at life's absurdities? Or do you wring your hands, find gloom and doom everywhere, and conclude that our world is awful?
You'll be healthier if you lighten up. Research has shown that those who score high on a multidimensional sense of humor scale have lower levels of depression and higher levels of purpose than those who score low in humor.
You don't have to be the author of the joke to appreciate it, nor do you have to laugh out loud. How much you laugh isn't a good measure of your sense of humor. Soldiers going into battle, for example, respond to the least little thing with gales of nervous laughter. You can laugh inwardly, and some types of humor, such as dry wit, demand a wry smile rather than a laugh.
Some people are better than others at laughing things off, or at least smiling at the ridiculous, and research indicates that those blessed with a funnybone may actually live longer.
Take the following test to see how you use humor. On each item, give yourself:
1 point if you strongly disagree with the statement 2 points if you mildly disagree 3 points if you mildly agree 4 points if you strongly agree
1. I often crack people up with the things I say.
strongly disagree 1 2 3 4 strongly agree 2. Sometimes I think up jokes or funny stories.
strongly disagree 1 2 3 4 strongly agree 3. My friends regard me as something of a wit.
strongly disagree 1 2 3 4 strongly agree 4. People look to me to say amusing things.
strongly disagree 1 2 3 4 strongly agree 5. Uses of humor help me adapt to many situations.
Your Creativity and Performance Score : 13
Statements 1 through 4 have to do with humor creativity and performance. If your total score for these items is 15 or 16, you're probably the life of the party. But you don't have to be a wild and crazy guy to be creative. Maybe you think of the thing that will crack up the group, but you're reluctant to say it. Or you think of the right response 10 minutes too late. The point is, you do think of it. You may have a subtler or quieter wit, and that's all right. If you scored 6 or less on these first four items, though, maybe you'd be happier if you opened up a little. Nobody wants to cultivate a reputation for being dull.
Your Coping Score : 16
Items 5 through 8 deal with coping. It's important to realize that you don't have to have the weight of the world on your shoulders in order to use coping humor. We all face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. And even if you're living a glorious life, you know that none of us gets out of this alive. So, having to cope might be situational, but it may also just be one of the good habits that prevent us from taking ourselves — or our lives — too seriously.
Our research indicates that women tend to score higher on the coping factor. This may seem paradoxical, as others' research has shown women on average to be higher in depression, and coping humor is an antidote to depression. Either women are better able to admit vulnerability, or maybe they just have more to cope with. Scores of 13 to 16 indicate that you can laugh off in a healthy way much that might otherwise vex you. Scores of 8 to 12 suggest that you can often smile and go on. Scores of 4 to 7 may mean that you would be healthier if you laughed off some of your stressors.
Your Facilitation Score : 16
If you scored 14, 15, or 16 on Statements 9 through 12, you're a facilitator. People mean so much to you that you're willing to go out on a limb to ease their discomfort. You know that your coworkers are more productive when they're happy, and you will go out of your way to try to cheer things up. Scores of 10 to 13 on these items don't necessarily mean that you let other people stew; perhaps the situation demands some tension. If your scores on these items are low, though, you might study ways to inject humor into a situation.
Your Appreciation Score : 16
The last four items deal with appreciating humor. If you can see hilarity in circumstances that others find mundane or distasteful, then perhaps you are blessed. Your optimism and playfulness go along with your rich appreciation of fun and funny people. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we diet.
In our work with a longer (25-item) multidimensional sense of humor scale, we have found that situational variables are important in total sense of humor score. Combining the factors above, the sum may be dependent on who one is and where one is in life. Young males, for instance, tend to score fairly high on creativity and performance, probably because their peers value being funny. Older people, on the other hand, score fairly low on these items. There may be a cohort effect here: Young people were not expected to be so demonstrative when these subjects were young. Or they may have found quiet appreciation of others' humor more valuable than being the class clown.
Both older people and women tend to score high on the coping items. This may be a matter of their peers' styles or expectations. Or they may use less humor in public and more within the in-group. They are facilitators, who enforce group norms using humor, or they may be those who ease tension by making light of what might otherwise be seen as threatening. Most psychologists agree that those who cope by using humor are healthier mentally, and perhaps physically and spiritually.
People who appreciate humor don't have to use it to cope or as a social lubricant, nor do they have to be gag writers. They may just smile at life. We find, though, that those who appreciate humor also use it as a coping mechanism. And one has to have appreciation before one can learn to create. Facilitation often depends on creation and performance.
Total Score : 61
So, total your four scores. The maximum score is 64. If you're near it, you let your sense of humor serve you, improving your quality of life.
If your total score is between 40 and 50, you use humor sometimes, but perhaps you could learn to let yourself go and enjoy more variety.
Did you score between 20 and 30? Well, you poor old gloomy thing. Less than 20? You need to make an effort to look on the bright side. Life has greater potential if you can loosen up and enjoy it. You don't have to laugh out loud. Somebody might hear you. Just mellow out a bit. Pull my finger.
Kids who grow up in a negative atmosphere are less likely to appreciate a healthy sense of humor and lighthearted living.
On the other hand, kids raised in a happy, well-adjusted home with an abundance of humor and laughter tend to react more positively to harmless practical jokes, story telling, and mirth. This environment allows kids (and parents) a chance to lighten-up, to participate readily in laughter, to understand humor, and to not take themselves too seriously when they grow up.
My kids love practical jokes. Hiding their toys and sending instead a slew of ransom notes cracks my son up. My daughter likes humorous, ironic one-liners to add to her messenger window.
The Humor Index asks 12 questions to help you assess your background and upbringing in terms of permission to be lighthearted.
During childhood and adolescent years...(mark 1 for NEVER/RARELY; 2 for OCCASIONALLY; 3 for SOMETIMES; 4 for QUITE OFTEN; 5 for ALMOST ALWAYS... then add them up at the bottom)
1. I had permission to laugh out loud. _______ 2. I can remember specific incidences when I laughed out loud. _______ 3. My mother or adult female caretaker laughed out loud. _______ 4. My father or adult male caretaker laughed out loud. _______ 5. Our family had a sense of humor, either noisy or quiet. _______ 6. There was a sense of optimism in our family. _______ 7. We celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, or other significant milestones. _______ 8. We had a pet in our home. _______ 9. I enjoyed harmless practical jokes. _______ 10. We sang, danced or played together, either as a partial or whole family. _______ 11. Mealtime was a fun time at our house. _______ 12. We ate ice cream or other comfort foods. _______
TOTAL THIS SECTION (1-12)
Scores may vary. While you'd normally find a scale indicating a statistical break-down of how you answered compared to other people, here, you'll only find a heartfelt sentiment - mine. Celebration, festivity, mirth, story-telling, hilarity, and playfulness builds hope - in ourselves and in others. Children, in particular, love to laugh. It has been reported that children laugh approximately 400 times a day, while adults, if they're lucky, laugh only 15 times. We don't all need to carry a red, rubber nose and a pair of silly eyeglasses with us, but we could. I mean, why not? Do the cost-benefit analysis.
$.78 cents = Making a Kid Laugh....
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So, you want to be funny, huh? To speed up your comic ability, here's a free intro to Sophy's Razor Club... play games with acute verbal dexterity, become a smooth, keen talker, speed up your responses and sound sharper.
You too can be a first-class jokester without having to wait for someone to fall down or spill coffee down their pants (pause for a moment, imagine someone falling, now laugh - here's a cartoon to help you if you're imaginatively impaired).
People rarely laugh these days, but it's amazing how fast they will giggle or bust out with a slide-splitting guffaw when the opportunity arises. True, some of us have a little stress in our lives, but we can tackle life easier and more creatively if we just laugh about it.
Got tension? Get rid of it with a few easy, one liners. Don't argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
☆░L░A░U░G░H░ ☆
Your way to razor sharp wit...
Day 1: Lose your sense of seriousness, and do something out of the norm. While you might be burning calories carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, you'll burn more with gut-busting belly laughs.
Day 2: Laugh again. That's it. Just laugh. *When all else fails, get even!
Day 3: Embrace your inner comic...and they'll be eating out of your hand.
Day 4: Remember, we all laugh at different things, and some of us laugh differently. Take your dog (off my grass!) and give it a bone. Your dog will be so happy and surprised, that it will burst out into tail-wagging laughter!
Day 5: Practice your Pythonesque movements and make Roy Smile's smile...
Day 6: Make a joke file. Material doesn't grow on trees, ya' know. So, write funny stuff down. Ask people for jokes and start collecting them. As for me, I quit worrying about the dishes and asked my kids to write me jokes instead. Now, we have loads of dirty dishes to make fun of... and some fancy dish gloves, too!
Day 7: Pray, and then ask God for a bike. We know he doesn't work this way, so go out and steal one. Then, pray for forgiveness... makes for a good story.
If Adroitness is evading taxes, funny is getting married and finding out your father-in-law's the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.
If Creativity helped you graduate with honors from medical school, funny is watching your brain surgery patients do the hokey-pokey.
If Dexterity is cooking with chopsticks, funny is putting them up your nose.
If Expertise is designing complex software programs, funny is thinking your secret admirer is HOT when instead it's your computer playing a joke on you.
If Genius is designing a time travel machine to pass straight through time loops, funny is getting stuck in one.
If Intelligence is figuring out the rotation of the celestial bodies, funny is the Catholic Church locking you up so you can't go outside and look at the stars.
If Nimbleness is being able to jump over a candlestick, funny is dying and finding out that heaven is filled with them. (Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick)
If Resourcefulness is surviving a sinking ship, funny is when only your dog gets rescued.
If Skill is building a collection of custom tree house condo's, funny is smashing your thumb nailing up the FOR SALE sign.
If Talent is playing a playing Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, funny is dropping a piano on someone's head.
If Cleverness is posting this random bunch of clips, funny is thinking it's actually humorous!
Post Script: After reading this post my son told me, "If lame is the new funny, then you're pretty funny mom!"
Santa Claus reportedly began his pipe-smoking days back in 1823. According to RPGpundit, Santa has "many tastes when it comes to pipes," and has been enjoying tobacco for quite some time, presumably to keep warm in his workshop at the North Pole.
Norman Rockwell (1894 - 1978) had a way of capturing the essence of a moment. Here, as he meticulously draws his self-portrait, his pipe makes it into the painting but his glasses do not! Funny how we see ourselves: pipe = yes; glasses = no way!
Bob Hope (1903 - 2003) lived to the ripe old age of 100. Humor really is good medicine!
Desi Arnaz (1917 - 1986) founded Desilu Productions, with his wife, famous comedian, Lucille Ball, and helped pioneer some of the most sensational comedic moments to have ever hit the TV screen.
Evelyn (Arthur St. John) Waugh (1903 - 1966) had a high degree of sophistication and caustic wit, which he displayed in a highly polished, deceptively simple prose. He is credited with saying, "Punctuality is the virtue of the bored."
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910) said that ceasing smoking was the easiest thing he ever did. "I ought to know because I've done it a thousand times."
My favorite pipe smoker is René Magritte (1898 - 1967) who's iconic pipe painting, Ceci n'est pas un pipe (This is not a pipe) is the ultimate comedic masterpiece. Magritte inspired my own comedic spin...
Famous Pipe Smoking quotes...
"If you must smoke, take your butt outside."
~ Author Unknown
"To smoke or not to smoke: I can make of either a life-work."
~Mignon
"The best way to stop smoking is to just stop - no ifs, ands or butts."
~Edith Zittler
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time!"
