Random Acts of Comedy

"Seven days without laughter make one weak."   -  Joel Goodman

The use of humor in writing helps redeem moments lost to pain, fear, despair and loneliness. Scientific studies have determined that humor makes an impact on degenerative changes associated with neurocognitive decline as we age.  Random acts of comedy activate regions of the brain. This neural stimulation changes brain function to improve memory and promote neural plasticity.

Each individual has a unique funny bone.  What appeals to one person may not cause a giggle in another.  Regardless of your tickle sensation for laughter, develop what feels humorous to you. 

Adding comic relief to stressful situations will add to your talent for observing silliness in all situations.

Begin with a series of mishaps. Target negative situations. Give them a twist and add a spark of hope with humor.

Here's a start:  What if you awaken ten minutes later than planned?  Then toothpaste lands on your shirt. You trip on a rug, landing on your funny bone on your way to the car. There's a maintenance vehicle in the middle of the street with someone pushing wires into the sewer. What is going on down there? The technician looks suspicious. 

By now you're not going to make it to work on time. Then what?  Keep progressing through the chaos and add lines of humor. What if you decide to alter your day and skip work?  What funnyness for an excuse will you devise? 

Create random acts of comedy as you alter the details. 

Brake for humor and laugh out loud at a stop light with your window down.  

Daily practice will enrich your brain power. Take a day to rejuvenate with laughter and play.

Launch into Possibility

“The truth is, everything that has happened in my life… that I thought was a crushing event at the time, has turned out for the better.”    - Warren Buffett

How you adjust to or recover from misfortune defines your resilience in life. Recall an event that felt frustrating or focus on a perceived failure in your life. Paint each into mind pictures with all your senses. Next, permit your writing to inform you by working with the sound and scent of the events like a distanced third party reporting the scenes.

How were you resilient in processing the events? Write for ten minutes to reveal how these events made a positive difference in your life.

Become more resilient and feed on possibilities:

Focus on where the event led. Effort and attempts are first steps that can lead in directions we have not considered if we move past the mistakes and let them inform us of possibilities.

Accept failures as lessons. Make a different mistake next time. Learn from experiences and accept them as pre-payments for future success. Deal with undesirable consequences when you're learning a lesson; that’s real life.

Never give up. Get up one more time, wiser.

Seek reinforcement from people who enrich your life.

Each day provides learning experiences. Engage with the rocks in the road and leap over them or race around to a new path.

Launch yourself from the branches.

Discover metaphors to use when you need encouragement. Write about it.

Into the Night

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work

and that when we no longer know which way to go

we have begun our real journey.  

- Wendell Berry

 ". . . wanderer, there is no path, the path is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again."

- Antonio Machado

Metaphorical thinking helps us connect to the secrets and mysteries inside. If one decides to experience what lurks behind the door or deep inside one's own cavern, self-knowledge awaits. 

Robert Frost felt, "poetry takes you to a place you have been and thought you'd never return to."

Days provide challenges and chances to take. 

At sunset, the sun exhausts its focus and blends into the sea.

Ellipses and clouds merge.

Colors translate

the sky.

Tangerine translates

into persimmon.

Where sun dragons

prance.

Move into the darkness. 

Bring a lantern for revitalization. Illuminate sensitivities.  

Take on the night!