Funny-Side Up

Do some of us take life too seriously, in spite of knowing that none of us is going to come out of it alive? The following write up is an exclusive for the “seriously-serious” and an attempt to make them “humorously-serious”. The difference between the two will become clear as you read on, and I request you not to scroll down and find the difference right away.

Okay, as you are reading it, just stop for a moment and take a quick look at the mirror. And as you walk up to the mirror, make it a point to maintain the same disposition with which you started reading the article. This will reveal how cheerful you appear even in your leisure. For the extremely serious, the mirror will reveal that you appear grim with the proverbial stiff upper lip once reserved for the upper class Brits. In fact, this seriousness is all pervading. Just a quick look up from your work station, you will see serious faces typing their way to the next appraisal. Have they forgotten to smile? Or will they smile when they reach what they set out to achieve. Also, when I look at some folks higher up in the ladder of official hierarchy, I believe they secretly nurse the belief that if they appear serious, life is going to reward them with something unimaginably great.

Coming back to the reflection in the mirror, what you saw is not your real nature. In fact deep inside us, each one of us knows that the essential nature of the soul is love and light. This “humorlessness” and sternness is an acquired trait. Acquired, not genetically as I have some very funny friends whose parents hardly smile and vice versa. So, when exactly did some of us acquire this solemnity? We did, when we opened a door in our heart, bigger than what was required to welcome a guest called “ego”. That guest never left us, and the more we entertained it, the more we lost touch with our real self.

Now, take the case of children. Children are inherently joyous. Yet I have seen many teachers admonishing them for silly acts such as acting like a clown in the intervening time period between the teacher leaving the class and returning. Not to mention the fact that the 5 minute act made almost all children laugh uncontrollably. To top it all, the teacher would ask the little fellow, “When will you be serious?”Huh..

I strongly advocate that the school time table should have one period set aside for humor. Teachers, don’t you think refreshed children are an easy lot to teach?

A look at our own lives would reveal that on the days we went about our tasks with a smile on our face, we were more productive. We were also more productive when we brushed aside unwarranted remarks by someone known to us. This is particularly true of humorously-serious people. They are known to take everything with a pinch of salt. In fact, repeated exposure to such situations makes them pros at handling difficult people . Over a course of time, they discover that snide remarks in fact ignite their creativity and it is not long before they start providing apt counter-answers laced in humor. The result: Every body in the room is laughing, including the perpetrator of the unwarranted remark. On the contrary, the seriously-serious would feel hurt and in turn, add on to the seriousness that they already possess. Inadvertently, they are opening other doors in their heart to the two best companions of ego, namely loneliness and sadness. To sum it up, the only place to be serious is the ICU. Seriously.