Tell me, how seriously do you take humor?
Have you ever wondered about the social importance of the joke your friend cracks before entering the examination hall with you? How all your stress about not studying an important topic disappears after his stupid joke?
Make fun of a problem, and all of a sudden it stops intimidating you.
All these years of our life, so many laughs and gags, yet we barely notice the role humor plays in making our lives more liveable. Comedy is a useful tool to nourish social relations, to turn the unpleasant aspects of our lives as helpfully ridiculous.
A good sense of humor is undoubtedly one of the most attractive features we look for in our partners. Why? because a good sense of humor is a sign of mental stability, which makes your partner more suitable for child-rearing.
To understand the importance of humor, let me tell you a story of a time when the whole world was at stake—World War II.
In 1940 when Britain was in a very precarious military situation, a song mocking the Nazi leaders became wildly popular.
"Hitler Has Only Got One Ball" is the name of that song. This song was so popular that it has its own Wikipedia page.
The enemy's power was all too terrifyingly apparent; the point was simply to keep them cheerful, and defiant was centrally important to the task, of just keeping them going.
You can read the lyrics here. Trust me, it’s super-funny. Had me rolling.
By mocking dangerous and undesirable things, humor can embolden us; it paints what's potentially frightening as helpfully ridiculous. That’s exactly what Hitler Has Got Only One Ball succeeded to achieve.
Humor and Holocaust
One of the biggest promoters of self-enhancing humor was Viktor Frankl, the father of logotherapy. In his book—Man’s Search for Meaning—Viktor told us how humor gives us the superpower to bear challenging mishappenings in our lives.
Sharing his experience in the concentration camp, Viktor wrote: “The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living. Yet it is possible to practice the art of living even in a concentration camp, although suffering is omnipresent.”
Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.
— Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor, in his book, wrote how he introduced a friend to the life-saving value of humor — an acquired skill, like any art — through what is essentially a disciplined implementation of creative prompts.
“I practically trained a friend of mine who worked next to me on the
building site to develop a sense of humor. I suggested to him that we
would promise each other to invent at least one amusing story daily,
about some incident that could happen one day after our liberation.”
What You Don’t Have To Do!
When I ask you to make fun of your miseries, I am not saying that you should use self-degrading humor to make others laugh. You do not need to turn yourself into a clown—making fun of your slightest shortcomings—to be more cheerful.
I simply want you to take your life, and the problems surrounding it, a little less seriously—to have a humorous outlook toward life and its absurdity. One thing that Mark Manson advocated in his book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck as well.
He promoted the idea that by taking yourself too seriously you are breeding entitlement, which, in turn, makes you miserably intolerant and egoistic.
The Vortex of Sympathy
I am not asking you to use humor for ignoring your problems—to live like a hipster. It is as the Stoics say—focus on what you can control, let go of the rest.
Humor prevents you from becoming a self-sabotaging sympathy addict. It also prevents you from becoming a victim of your circumstances.
Most people are basically a victim of the circumstances of their life. They have things like 9/11, they have terrorism threats, they have new war threats, they have economy problems, and they think, 'What can I do? I'm basically a victim.'
— Stephen Covey
Apologies for being blunt and insensitive, but trust me, victimhood is addictive. By becoming the victim of our circumstances we manage to gain sympathy from this harsh world. It’s pleasant for a while, makes us feel protected, but ultimately— vulnerable.
Some people choose to believe that there is nothing they can do to solve their problems, even when they can. Victims seek to blame others for their problems or outside circumstances.
Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.
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