Laughing in the face of adversity

How you handle adversity says more about you than you realize.

There are millions of different sayings. 

“If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” 

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” 

“True adversity brings out the best in people.” 

“Are you a man or a mouse?” 

I rant, I bitch and moan and I make jokes.  I find, or at least try to find, humor in most situations.  It isn’t due to irreverence to the seriousness of issues presented, it is a coping mechanism.  It is how I get through a tough day, week, month, or year. 

A long time ago, I learned that if you can’t laugh you have nothing.  Growing up in our house, humor was all around.  It was trial by flaming arrows of laughter, all aimed at you.  You learned to have a thick skin.  You either laughed at the joke being made at your expense or you cried. 

At the time it seemed mean to me.  Why in the world would my dad laugh at me and make jokes when, insert your childhood-teenage angst-filled moment here, happened?

Turns out, it taught us to find humor in all things, and what the little things actually were.  There was reverence for the real, the meaningful life situations, but for all others, laughter.  We didn’t need a book to learn about our “cheese”.   

So now, whether it is a little thing or a big thing, I laugh.  Life is too short to cry at things that don’t deserve my tears. 

It is better to die of side-splitting laughter, than to drown in a pool of one’s own tears.