“Laughter is the best medicine.”
“We don’t stop playing because we get old; we get old because we stop playing.”

Two ways of saying the same thing: we need humour and fun in our lives. I was in Russia when - upon being told that North Americans were viewed as childish because we laughed so much - I decided I liked being childish if it meant enjoying the funny side of life. Because life is funny.

Now, there are all kinds of humour and each of us has our preferences. There’s slapstick (think Three Stooges – not exactly my thing), there’s physical (think Dick Van Dyke and Steve Martin – more my thing), and there’s thought provoking (think Chris Rock and Jon Stewart – my preference). There’s stand-up, there’s stories, there’s cartoons, there’s pantomimes and it goes on and on.

Basically, though, there’s nothing funnier than life itself and no one funnier than us humans. We all have these quirks that we accept as “the right way”, “the logical way” to do things. However to other people they are just quirks. If we’re lucky the folks close to us find these traits humorous and not irritating. But do we? Teasing comes from knowing someone well and pointing out the quirks. If we can’t laugh at ourselves, this teasing can hurt – we feel we’re being laughed “at”. If we can laugh at ourselves, we realize we’re being laughed “with”.

I have a thing about colours. Don’t ask me why: it’s one of my quirks. This colour thing shows up in funny (as in odd) ways – like in jam. That’s right as in peanut butter and jam. It should be red. What kind as in strawberry, mixed berry, cherry and such doesn’t matter nor does the flavour. Frankly I think they all taste the same and the one or two times I’ve had an apricot or peach jam, they tasted much better. Doesn’t matter, jam should be red.

Irritation or quirk? It’s in the eye of the beholder but when faced with being annoyed or laughing, I like laughing better. We’re all only human and we’re all pretty funny (one way or another). Why not enjoy that side of ourselves as much as we do any other part?

After all, life is important but it doesn’t have to be serious.