“Every time you find some humor in a difficult situation, you win.” ~Unknown. 

Lately I’ve been thinking about the difficult things we have to endure, and how to find humor in every tough situation we encounter. I am not talking about tragedies or traumas, but I am talking about the obstacles we face in life or at work, the messy love choices we make and the bumpy road of adulthood- or the way we try to navigate through it.

I find humor in the way we hold ourselves accountable for the things we can’t control or how we try to interfere with the timing of our lives. We blame ourselves for our shortcomings and for the way our lives are unfolding, but we don’t realize that we are still growing up and getting tougher, we don’t know how these shortcomings are going to shape our future. Every comedian had a rough-somewhat dramatic past. They all found the power in transforming their pain to humor, they all knew that laughter heals.

I find humor in the way we break our own hearts. When we fall for someone who is wrong for us, when we try to make excuses for someone who is not appreciating us, and when we curse our own luck in love even though we are the ones who willingly handed our hearts to those who were more likely to break it. I find humor in the way we run away from love to look for it elsewhere, or the way we convince ourselves that we want to be alone but we can’t stand loneliness. I find humor in our confused, indecisive, naïve and foolish hearts. But we keep on loving and we keep on giving because eventually we get used to heartbreak or maybe our hearts become stronger and we learn how to finally move on, then we look back on all the nights we cried and laugh.

I find humor in the way we hold on to our past and complain that we can’t let go. In the way we like to go back to what has hurt us, or the way we choose to stay the same and whine about why we can’t change our lives. It’s funny because sometimes we have all the keys to transform our lives but we are always stuck on the one that doesn’t work or the one that is old and rusty until we realize that we could easily replace the key or change the lock. We keep telling ourselves if only we had known this sooner or if only we had done this earlier; and I think it’s funny that even after we get what we want we still find ways to blame ourselves for not getting it sooner.

I find humor in the way we take life too seriously or how we take everything so personally, or how we can spend months or years in total agony and misery over another human being or over something temporary. I find humor in the way we cling to life like we are never going to die but wait for someone else to die to remember how to live. It’s funny that sometimes death reminds us how to live. It’s funny that it takes a river of tears to teach us how to swim in the sea of laughter.

When you look back on your years, what do you want to see? Do you want to have memories of sobbing and worrying about the things that happened to you or the things that might happen to you, or do you want to remember a life that was more humorous than dramatic? Even it weren’t, at least you were able to learn the power of humor to help you cope.