If it's not funny, it's sad.
That's what my mother told me, when I was 9. She was a nurse...she worked at an Intensive Care Unit, where on a daily basis someone would be miserable, if not dead or dying.
How do you keep people in an ICU from wanting death to come early? How do you go home to a family and have a normal family life?
If it's not funny, it's sad.
See, humans choose their emotions more than they like to admit. If someone says something offensive, you choose to be offended, you allow them the power to cause you to become angry, upset, whatever.
But if you choose to make the problem funny, then it's no longer sad. The same truism of allowing people to have power over you through your emotions is just as true of events in your life, or even inaminate objects.
If it's not funny, it's sad.
People on the outside, people who still think that you are required to feel a certain way after certain events transpire, that if you don't allow the events to inflict an emotion upon you then you are somehow unhinged...don't understand. They think you're loony. More importantlly, they might be offended you don't think their situation is important enough to warrant emotional distress.
That happened at the hospital a lot. A patient would have to suffer some indignity...a catheter...a strange garment...and you try to help them see that their situation is funny from the outside looking in, invent a silly name for the garment or make a jovial comment about the catheter ("Gee, I think I'll need a bigger one..."). But instead they take offense, more content to add to their already morose state by brooding over this emotional injustice for the rest of the day.
If it's not funny, it's sad.
So...Choose funny.
Next time something sad is happening, choose to laugh. If people are smart enough, they'll know you're not being serious. If they can't figure it out, you don't need to be hanging around those kinds of troglodytes anyway.
It's only sad if it's not funny.
That's what my mother told me, when I was 9. She was a nurse...she worked at an Intensive Care Unit, where on a daily basis someone would be miserable, if not dead or dying.
How do you keep people in an ICU from wanting death to come early? How do you go home to a family and have a normal family life?
If it's not funny, it's sad.
See, humans choose their emotions more than they like to admit. If someone says something offensive, you choose to be offended, you allow them the power to cause you to become angry, upset, whatever.
But if you choose to make the problem funny, then it's no longer sad. The same truism of allowing people to have power over you through your emotions is just as true of events in your life, or even inaminate objects.
If it's not funny, it's sad.
People on the outside, people who still think that you are required to feel a certain way after certain events transpire, that if you don't allow the events to inflict an emotion upon you then you are somehow unhinged...don't understand. They think you're loony. More importantlly, they might be offended you don't think their situation is important enough to warrant emotional distress.
That happened at the hospital a lot. A patient would have to suffer some indignity...a catheter...a strange garment...and you try to help them see that their situation is funny from the outside looking in, invent a silly name for the garment or make a jovial comment about the catheter ("Gee, I think I'll need a bigger one..."). But instead they take offense, more content to add to their already morose state by brooding over this emotional injustice for the rest of the day.
If it's not funny, it's sad.
So...Choose funny.
Next time something sad is happening, choose to laugh. If people are smart enough, they'll know you're not being serious. If they can't figure it out, you don't need to be hanging around those kinds of troglodytes anyway.
It's only sad if it's not funny.