A sense of humor to lighten your life

There are people who have an innate sense of humor. They exercise it with lightness, without worrying too much about being funny and even managing to listen before speaking. I had an extraordinary uncle, whom everyone affectionately called Sandrino, capable of infecting anyone with his good humor. He caused several misdeeds while managing some family property, but my grandfather never presented him with the bill. On the contrary. He considered him his favorite son throughout his life, and he was right: with his sense of humor Sandrino had improved the well-being of the whole family. And when he died, his wife and children remembered him with a little prayer card that quoted a beautiful phrase from St. Thomas More: "Give me, Lord, a soul that does not know death. boredom, the grumbles, the sighs, the moans, and don't let me worry too much about that cumbersome thing called I."

What is a sense of humor? We could define it as a synonym for Calvino's light-heartedness, which has no nothing to do with superficialityA swallow's way of life: gliding from above over things and grasping them from the right angle. To have a sense of humor, you must not be too austere, not take yourself too seriously, not be a prisoner of your own certainties (it has been shown, for example, that the least witty people are fundamentalists in the religious field, political or military). Adding these characteristics together, it is easy to conclude that a sense of humor is an extraordinary antidote against narcissism, helps to deflate one's ego, as St. Thomas More well understood.

Another synonym for sense of humor is the ironyBut how can one be ironic? Let's say right away that, apart from the exceptions I mentioned at the beginning, one is not born ironic. But one can easily become so. It's important to laugh, first of all, of oneself, not always criticizing others, having a positive outlook on life and looking at people's qualities rather than their flaws. A highly contagious sense of humor helps us face life's most difficult moments, defuse situations, appreciate funny things and situations, and grasp the humorous aspects of any context.

An ideal time to develop a sense of humor and defend yourself through its use is precisely in the most dramatic moments. Life contains so much sadness, so much tragedy, and death It's an integral component. What to do? How can we maintain a sense of humor even in situations like this? Consider the pandemic. A very long, dramatic moment for everyone: humor allows us to lower our focus on pain and fear, and shift it toward a creative side that may have been paralyzed by daily stresses, the ones that humor tends to obscure. This fruitful use of humor is nothing new. The Florentine writer Giovanni Boccaccio completed the decamerone, with one hundred comic tales told by ten friends, while the plague raged in Europe, killing almost a third of the population.

If we aren't born with a sense of humor, there are things we can do to develop it from an early age. There are three tools, starting from the assumption that children always tend to emulate adults. So if you're sullen, closed off, unenthusiastic, and short on jokes, you've unfortunately created the conditions. to have similar children, and have a very poor sense of humor. On the contrary, developing a good vocabulary and using a wide range of words is crucial for developing humor from an early age. property of languageThen imagination, the ability to surprise and be surprised: an excellent starting point on the path to developing a sense of humor. And finally, knowing how to put yourself in someone else's shoes, understanding if they're just pretending: jokes and quips help. In conclusion: a sense of humor can be developed; you just need to practice it as early as possible.

There is a wealth of scientific research that unequivocally demonstrates the health benefits of humor. And these studies add to those relating to the therapeutic properties of laugh, which has become a tool of care in many hospitals where patients with serious cases are admitted, especially children. The most complete and up-to-date research on the benefits of humor was published in 2010 in Journal of Aging Research, with the results of a "humour therapy" administered to a group of elderly patients for eight consecutive weeks. A group of elderly people with the same number of people did not receive the "humor therapy" and compared it with the others. At the end of the experiment, people in the first group said, 42 percent of the time, they felt happier than when they started the "humor therapy." And they were 35 percent happier than the second group, having experienced a reduction in feelings of pain and loneliness.

If you've convinced yourself that irony simplifies and improves your quality of life, then once you've conquered it, cultivate it. Like a plant. Here too: don't always seek the approval of others, face the dissent with an open mind, do not think that life is a continuous settling of scores and slow down of your rhythms, don't always seek space to be the center of attention. In this case, you become annoying, even if your jokes are effective. Don't confuse irony with sarcasm, which often borders on cynicism, and avoid making humor about things about which there are no acceptable jokes or gags. An example? The tragedy of the Holocaust for any Jew, but not only for them, can never be the source of a humorous joke.

Famous quotes about a sense of humor

<L’imagination was given to themens to compensate him for what he is not, the sense of humor to console him for what he is>. Francis Bacon

We don't always live up to what we've been given. And we become mediocre, dulled by the shadows of opaqueness, unscrupulous with ourselves and others. A sense of humor then becomes consoling.

<Nessuno che abbia sense ofhumor has ever founded a religion>. Robert Green Ingersoll

A religion, whatever it is, presupposes faith, but it can also transform into an ideology with all its attendant consequences, even leading to fundamentalism. A sense of humor serves as a preventative measure against this risk, and certainly makes us feel more at peace and less entrenched in our certainties.

< Nothing kills humor more than trying to understand it >. David Steinberg

Think of a good comedian, or even a cartoonist: interpreting them, translating them, only means losing the authenticity and originality of a joke. A sense of humor requires freedom of expression, not pointless and boring translations.

<Attraverso l’umorismo noi vediamo in ciò che sembra rational irrational; in what seems important, the no important>. Charlie Chaplin

It sounds like a play on words, but it's simply the truth. A sense of humor has a magnetic force that reveals even repressed, or buried, aspects of our way of expressing ourselves. And it brings things back into their proper dimension, purging them of any forced meaning.

A sense of humor to lighten the burden of life

Famous quotes about a sense of humor

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