The art of seeing the funny in life

“Do not take life too seriously, you will never get out of it alive.” — Elbert Hubbard

Living is a serious matter. Dead serious. But why can’t we be alive serious? Regardless of what your primary schoolteachers told you, being too serious is really not good. As a recovering serious addict, I should know. I used to get serious and anxious about everything.

My favourite question to people was, “what keeps you up at night?” because there was a tonne of things I would be over analysing in the dark. I decided enough was enough when I started getting anxious about being anxious.

However, when I checked closely, the happy people laughing and smiling on the streets still had the same issues that the people frowning did. If anything, they just had a more bearable time dealing with them.

Since there is no rehab for overly serious people, I had to create my own cure. It came when a friend re-introduced me to the forgotten art and joy of laughing daily. I am serious.

She started by sending me funny YouTube videos of toddlers and cats. Eventually, I graduated to watching stand-up comedy online just to get my daily laugh quota.

Which was a big step for someone who didn’t believe being a comedian was serious business. Never mind that the likes of Steve Harvey are laughing all the way to the bank while some Wall Street types are jumping off buildings. That has to count for something. Just look at the laugh industry in this country and how viral it gets. We are more likely to forward a funny video than a sad one.

DAY WALKER SHOW

So today, let’s thank heavens for funny people who say crazy things that make you laugh so hard you might just pass out. You’ve got tears streaming down your face and your sides hurt so bad that you have to lean over to ease the pain.

While local comedy is my absolute best, Trevor Noah comes a close second. In his Day Walker show, he talks about being a child of mixed race in Apartheid South Africa with its segregation rules.

Although he lived with his mother on ‘the black side’ he occasionally visited with his white relatives. He talks about discovering the different ways both sides of his family viewed his childhood ‘imaginary friend’.

While his father’s side of the family was welcoming of his ‘imaginary friend’, his grandmother on his mother’s side considered it a demon of some sort and would beat the air around him to get rid of it.

We get it.

There are some things that don’t go with being African and black. Things like ‘imaginary friends’. Blame it on our healthy respect for the spirit world. We do not do friendly ghosts like Casper either.

On the other hand, we do take live chickens to football matches. And not as pets or food, I might add. There’s so much humour in being African if we are awake to it.

In a world that is often sad and bad, we have to learn to laugh at ourselves, at others and the nonsensical aspects of the planet we live in.

Seeing the funny in life is an art. Yet it is much, much more. It is health and wellness. It takes the edge off a bad day, an unhappy relationship or a scary moment.

Even as you do serious life stuff, take the light approach. Find humour and joy whenever you can. After an assassination attempt on his life on March 30, 1981, former US President Ronald Reagan was bleeding and in need of surgery to remove the bullet in his body.

However, as he was being wheeled into the operating theatre, he had a moment to weakly joke with his wife. “Honey, I forgot to duck,” he said.

What an amazing thing for a powerful man to do in a dead serious moment. He didn’t know if he would make it out. However, he was not going to lose his sense of humour too.

A friend’s daughter has a saying that I have come to like: ‘We are here for a good time, not a long time,’ she says. How true. Life is short. Smile while you still have teeth. Laugh while your ribs can still handle it.

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