Sunday, June 22, 2014

Humor, the essence of your own life

No jokes on chickens or bars; humor is taking the world.

Beforehand, only a few people could make use of it. Nowadays, anyone tries to use humor as a weapon against being bored or to avoid conflicts. I am not talking here about irony or sarcasm, humor's "evil twins". I am talking of a pure and sensitive humor sense that enables someone to change the view in relation to any situation, no matter how dark it is, and, of course, turn the environment a little more cheerful...

And that is fundamental when you work, in your family environment or at the time to talk to your neighbor about his unhealthy habit of playing loud songs at 11.30 pm... Because humor presents the situations in a new different light and resistance is decreased by that quality, allowing changes to happen. Real sensitive humor; other types of humor probably will help you to get a smack on your head or you will have to watch over your shoulder for the rest of your life expecting revenge...

Personally, I was never a funny guy, but I noticed something... It was in Chile, in '92, when I was leaving the last company I worked there, coming back to my birthplace, São Paulo. I used to work for Borland, at that time one of the giants in software for microcomputers; I started to make jokes to lighten the atmosphere of my farewell party when a co-worker mentioned that I used humor to deflect sadness... And I must say she was totally right, after all what do you think it is better, to laugh or to cry?

With humor I can accept a bitter order by my boss or avoid retorting to some comment my dad made. I can fall and laugh at that and I can make jokes on my own failure... Real humor gives comfort and strength, but it only works when it comes from you, from your own dharma as a person.

But, how to develop that? First of all, if you don't have sense of humor, believe me when I tell you can develop it... Second, try to detach from your own self. German, a great Chilean comedian, says that his trick is to make jokes on himself, not on others' expenses; this makes his videos very funny as they came from his own experience. So, if you can detach yourself, you can use your wonderful life as a source of humor, and I tell you, what a source!!!

A last tip: smile a lot. Laughter can last for some time; while smiles can last forever, generate a light environment and make people opener to your comments... they can even laugh at that!



P.S. Well, it is kind of lacking some humor in here...
Do you know why I don't like performing, not even dancing in front of others? Well, when I was a child I decided to perform in front of my whole class (and the whole school, in fact). I was the frog who turned into the prince, you know the story... I still remember the moment I raised and declared myself as the prince, something happened there and people laughed at me forever, destroying a very promising future actor!!

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