Life goals

Cryptic spoiler alert: "Ha, ha! Ow! Ha, ha! Ow! Ha, ha! Aargh!"

A sculptural representation of laughter.

In my previous job I worked with a dude who was always laughing, always happy, and whenever he told a story he always seemed to find it hysterically funny. For the most part, this had a positive effect on every else in the office, as laughter can be infectious (rather like yawning), but there would sometimes be the occasional moment when the laughter was inappropriate.

For example on one occasion we were swamped with work, transferring to a new system and time was running out as we were struggling to make our deadline. The laughing dude from work was assigned to work on an important report and after a few hours he seemed to be taking rather a long time to complete it, so the manager asked him how we was getting on. The laughing dude then revealed that unfortunately, just when he was nearly finished, he had forgotten to save the spreadsheet, so hours of work had been wasted and he had had to start all over again!

Now most normal people would be very apologetic when revealing to their deadline-stressed manager that they had wasted almost an entire day's work, but true to form, the laughing dude thought the fact that he had wasted the entire day was hysterically funny and he was absolutely killing himself with laughter as he told the manager the bad news.

I have to admit that like I say, laughter can be infectious, and watching the scene unfold, with the manager getting increasingly angry while the laughing dude found it increasingly hilarious, was quite an amusing scene to watch, and I had to struggle not to start laughing myself. The laughing dude didn't mean anything nasty by it, and he wasting deliberately trying to wind the manager up*. It was just that his naturally laughing nature meant he couldn't help himself from breaking down in fits of laughter as he told the manager he had forgot to save the spreadsheet and wasted the entire day.

* Although despite his non-attempts, he was definiteluy succeeding in this non-goal.

"I'm going to be in agony for the next six months!
Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Another time things were even more serious, and the laughing dude was off work for a few days with chest pains, and so at first we were worried that he might have heart problems. As it turned out, one of his rib joints had come out of place and that was what was causing the excruciating pain. However, true to form, when he came back to work and told us how he would be in agony for the next six months, he inevitably found the whole thing hilarious!

He told us he shouldn't really laugh because it caused him excruciating pain, and needless to say this had him in absolute hysterics! As a result, the next few minutes consisted of him cracking up in fits of laughter, then clutching his side in agony at the pains caused by his laughter, only to find this pain funny and thus start laughing again, causing more pain, and more clutching of his side, followed by yet more laughter in one big vicious circle of painful laughter. As I say, laughter is contagious so pretty soon his laughter had spread to the rest of us, and we were all laughing along at his predicament.

Generally speaking, I'd say it's not very nice to laugh at someone in agony, but his laughter / pain / laughter / pain / laughter was so amusing to watch that you couldn't help but laugh.

Anyway, the point of my waffling is to say that in modern society we seem to judge success by money and possessions, but we should really judge success by how happy we are. I love laughing, so imagine how cool it must be to be such a laughingish person that you can't stop yourself from laughing even when it causes you pain! It must be brilliant to have such a highly powered sense of humour as the laughing dude.

At the start of every year I usually make a few New Year's resolutions for the coming year, but this year my goal is straight forward. I want to laugh as much as possible. I want a life filled with so much laughter that even if it causes me physical agony I still won't be able to stop myself from laughing.  Imagine how brilliant it would be to have that much laughter in your life!

Footnote: In reality I hate physical pain, so if I'm being truthful, I definitely don't want to laugh so much that it hurts. However, I do want to laugh as much as possible, whilst remaining below the pain threshhold.

- - - - - - - - - -

Related posts:
Funny things kids say
Smiley faces in things