Don’t get me wrong; there is nothing bad about foolish comedy. The kind each one of us confuse for “dry comedy” or “poor sense of
humor”. One thing I have realized is that life is too funny to live through it
and not get a laugh out of it. Why do we not see the funny side of
life whilst we are still alive? I mean today you will meet people too serious
on their work that they really seem amusing. For instance, some people wake up
and prepare to go to work knowing very well that their normal route always has
traffic. However, as they leave their houses they expect not to find any traffic.
Is this not funny, I mean, when they hit the road and find traffic do you get
angry or simply laugh at your earlier thoughts?
Recently, I read a story of two mice, Scurry
and Sniff and two little people, Hem and Haw. After I had soaked my eyes after
reading the pages of the book in my palms, I couldn't help but wonder. Then in
a flash my memory clicked, I had surely come across this story somewhere. It
took me quite a while to figure out that sometime back I had watched a cartoon
on this very topic, “Who Moved my Cheese?”
I could not hold back as I let a big smile cover my face, laughing at the
thought of how short my memory could be. If you are reading this and you still
aren't smiling, then you probably have never watched nor read the book. But again,
if you are reading this after watching it and you still don’t think it’s funny,
you are possibly taking life too seriously.
The whole story is about change and how some of
us take time before we realize that it’s too late or things have changed.
However, the writer wittingly delves into the lives of mice and people to
illustrate the concept of change. For a moment he made me think that mice are
much cleverer than humans. Only to realize that the very intelligence we have
can sometimes be our downfall.
After Haw, the better of the two little people,
realized how funny it sounded as they sat waiting for their “Cheese” to be
brought back. He was compelled, perhaps, by his inner voice to take action or
he would finally make a fool of himself. The thought of laughing at oneself
really sounds insane. Many people will probably even think you are insane or
you are going down that road soon. How
many people find themselves or their life funny? Or how many can laugh at their
own jokes without being seen to be weird?
Living in today’s world comes with its own
challenges from working long shifts to pay bills, to writing assignments to
meet deadlines, to hopping on the train to visit friends. Everything sounds
like really hard work. One of the story’s lessons is to laugh at yourself, as
this is the most effective way to motivate yourself to change.
As you go through your life, make fun of yourself;
find things to laugh about in your life. By doing this, dancing in the rain
when you know you will be soaked in water makes more sense than scurrying off
to the nearest shelter when it starts to rain, while you risk breaking your
limbs.
Hopefully, I have convinced you why life need
not be too serious, and that once in a while you should make fun of yourself or
even try out comedy. But if you can’t laugh at your jokes, attend comedy gigs
and laugh as comedians make fun of you all day and night. Then take the comedy too seriously and make changes so that your life
is even funnier. (By this phrase, I
mean when you go to the comedy show you will have a good laugh even if
comedians make fun of you, if you can laugh at a comedian making fun of your
issues (e.g. weight issues, ignorance, look, beliefs etc.) then surely you can
take his/her jokes seriously and make your life funnier (means better than
before), thus by Laughing at yourself it will motivate you to make changes in
life, thus improve your life.
