The most wasted of all days
is one without laughter.
~e.e. cummings
I’ve just finished Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
A small child typically laughs more than four hundred times each day, and an adult- seventeen times. I wondered if I hit even that number most days.
Ok, that’s two sentences, so sue me. Anyway, it’s TRUE. I don’t laugh enough. My husband really doesn’t laugh enough. How many times have you laughed today? When was the last time that you laughed so hard that you cried, that your face and abs hurt the next day from all that laughing?
Meanwhile, looking through my photographs, I can see that my kids’ natural inclination is to be silly, to laugh, to try to make me, behind the camera, laugh. God help me, how many times have I been in a hurry, and the kids have done something to make each other laugh, and I’ve told them now is not the time? Or “that’s not funny?” Or “how about a NICE smile for the camera?”
Guess how many pictures I have of myself laughing, or even really smiling? None.
Do me a favor: laugh today. Let your kids tell you a stupid joke, and laugh like it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever heard. Do a silly dance and laugh at yourself. Take a picture of your funniest face and upload it to Facebook- share the laughter. I couldn’t be more serious about this– in a lighthearted way, of course.
Laugh, love, live. We know we should, why don’t we do it more?
To send you on your merry way, two things Cass said recently that made me stop whatever “important” thing I was doing to laugh.
First, I was arguing with Jake about something, and he had an excuse, and I said that “wasn’t relevant.” Cass giggled to herself and I asked her why: “Relephant. A rat and an elephant.” Mind, I say relevant a LOT, so ten times a day Cass is sitting there wondering why I’m always talking about rat elephants.
Second, remember that stupid knock-knock joke where banana is repeatedly at the door, and then the punchline is “Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?” Cass recently told a version where she fell all over herself delivering “Flamingo you glad I didn’t say monkey?” This phrase all by itself make me laugh as I type it.
And now, the quote gallery, because I just had to.
Laughter is an orgasm triggered by the intercourse of sense and nonsense.
~Author Unknown
The person who knows how to laugh at himself will never cease to be amused.
~Shirley MacLaine
At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.
~Jean Houston
I’ve always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, “Ain’t that the truth.”
~Quincy Jones
A man isn’t poor if he can still laugh.
~Raymond Hitchcock
No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.
~Thomas Carlyle
With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
~Abraham Lincoln
Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.
~Victor Hugo
Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.
~William Saroyan
A smile starts on the lips,
A grin spreads to the eyes,
A chuckle comes from the belly;
But a good laugh bursts forth from the soul,
Overflows, and bubbles all around.
~Carolyn Birmingham
Laughter is much more important than applause. Applause is almost a duty. Laughter is a reward.
~Carol Channing
Laughter is the brush that sweeps away the cobwebs of your heart.
~Mort Walker
It is impossible for you to be angry and laugh at the same time. Anger and laughter are mutually exclusive and you have the power to choose either.
~Wayne Dyer
I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.
~Clarissa Pinkola Estes
I think laughter may be a form of courage. As humans we sometimes stand tall and look into the sun and laugh, and I think we are never more brave than when we do that.
~Linda Ellerbee
If I have caused just one person to wipe away a tear of laughter, that’s my reward.
~Victor Borge
You don’t stop laughing because you grow old.
You grow old because you stop laughing.
~Michael Pritchard
Your thoughts?
Do you laugh enough? Did any of these quotes speak to you? What’s the funniest thing you’ve heard lately?
**Gretchen Rubin link is an affiliate link, which means if you buy it I get a few cents. I am telling you this to keep the FTC happy. Your local library probably has it for free (unless you go to my library, in which case I still have it, five days overdue, sorry!). It’s a great, easy, thought-provoking read. You should check it out.**
I decided I needed to buy The Happiness Project after how I handled the end of last year, and that Gretchen Rubin stopped in my birthplace on my birthday on her tour. Seemed like a sign. Now I feel like I should read it with reverence, which I'm too tired to feel lately… That is probably the exact opposite of the point. I should pick it up, and soon.
I guess my full FTC caveat would be that, actually, I made my parents buy it for me. 😉
Thanks for the good laughter quotations, and for Cassidy's lovely insights. I got a good chuckle out of both of them!
I'm going to need to buy it too, for reference. It's chock-full of historical and literary references to happiness, my kind of book! It's neatly divided into months, and then 3 or 4 sections per month, so it's the type of read where you can commit to just a piece at a time. Whereas I had to do the whole thing in one go because it was overdue at the library 🙂