Several years ago, I was preparing for my black belt board of review in Karate. I had affirmations on post-it notes all over the place. "Remember to Breathe," "I am strong and confident," "I am a black belt," and "Remember to Laugh," I wrote the one about laughing after getting in the car one morning and realized I had not combed my hair yet. I was late for work and didn't have time to go back inside the house for a comb so I grabbed the car brush, still wet with snow, and put my hair back into place. What struck me so funny was not only that I just used the car brush to comb my hair, but also the fact that I was bald on top of my head. Learn to Laugh at Yourself Needless to say I have learned over the years to laugh at myself. First of all, as my parents often told me, when you laugh at yourself you steal the thunder from everyone else who might be tempted to laugh at you. It takes practice to see what's funny about a situation and laugh. One time, I was in my car driving slowly through the middle of a huge puddle in the road. I had my window down because it was very humid in the car after the mid-summer downpour that had left the landscape drenched with standing water everywhere. I looked up just in time to see an enormous vehicle speeding toward me through the same puddle I was making my way through. I was drenched from my head to my seatbelt as was the inside of the car with dirty rainwater before my hand could make it to the window control. Getting mad could have been my first response until I realized there was nothing I could have done to change the outcome of what happened. So, I just laughed. The upside of things is that the inside of the car dried out and I got a great story out of it. The down side of the story is that the owner of the car wasn't laughing as I related the story to him. I guess he needed to learn to laugh more in his life, too. Look For Humor in a Situation or Challenge There is tremendous hope in every breath you take, and that hope is magnified a hundredfold every time you laugh. Look for those things that make you smile a little, chuckle some, giggle a lot, or burst your sides from laughing so hard. Laughter is what makes a molehill out of a mountain, a suntan out of a sunburn, or a "new you" hairdo out of a bad hair day. Laughter is what turns big things into the small stuff. And honestly, as they say, it's all small stuff. Often, we miss a lot of the little things that present themselves as gifts that could brighten our day and lighten our load if we would just look a little more closely. You know, like the time when someone comes out of the ladies room with a long piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her shoe and doesn't know it's there. Just laugh inside, be glad it isn't you, and then politely point it out to her to save her some embarrassment. Maybe she will laugh at herself and have a great story to tell later in her day. Laugh Ten Times a Day As I said before, finding things to laugh at takes practice, but it also just takes laughing. Laugh at a funny TV commercial, or something funny someone said at work. Laugh by yourself, laugh with your spouse, your kids, or your friends. Make a point to laugh at least ten times a day.What you will find is that laughter is contagious. You can catch it from yourself. Others can catch it from you, and you can catch it from them. Sometimes, we just start laughing by hearing others laugh, and in my humble opinion, there is no greater sound in the world than a child's laughter. Just think how much better the world would be, how much kinder and gentler our lives would be, if we just remembered to laugh. Make today a miracle, Chris D'Cruz -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BETTER PERSONALITY GROUP" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to better_personality+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to better_personality@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/better_personality. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
