William A. Ward — Humor

Are you able to laugh at yourself and the circumstances you find yourself in?  Life has a tendency to throw you off balance and unless you are able to laugh, you will surely cry.  Laughter gives us balance and a way to cope with the challenges we face.  



Many of us take ourselves too seriously. We need to learn to laugh at ourselves. We all make mistakes. We all screw-up. When we learn to laugh at our mistakes, we begin to heal the pain. None of us are perfect, even those of us who try to be. For years perfection has been one of my goals whether I was speaking or writing and I have had to learn a hard lesson that it is okay to make a mistake. I have had to learn to relax and to laugh at myself. In fact, mistakes make us better people, more human.

Have you laughed today? In these crazy times (and when have they not been crazy?), we need to be able to find humor in the absurdity of living or we will quickly lose perspective. We will fail to see the forest. Laughter and humor are essential for maintaining one's sanity in a difficult, confusing and chaotic world.

Some of the best humor is what I call spontaneous humor.  This is humor that is not planned.  This is humor that rises spontaneously out of the situation and it can't be conveyed to others.  This is humor that you have to have been there to grasp it. 



Are you able to find the humor in difficult situations?  I challenge you to keep a humor journal where you record funny things that happen to you.  And on those days when you feeling down, pick up your journal and relive those laughs.

Harley King

Humor does not come easy for me.  I rarely find the jokes that people tell as funny.  I often don't find standup comedians to be very funny either.  As a child, I was very serious.  My wife, on the other hand, has always been a comedian.  Growing up, she would have her family in stitches with her ability to make people laugh.  She has taught me through our more than forty years of marriage that laughter is one of the most powerful instruments of healing that we have at our disposal.  These days I look for ways to bring humor into my life.



Whether I am one on one with a person or in a small group of people, I do not tell jokes.  As a professional speaker for over 25 years, I did not tell jokes.  Yet, there have been moments in my workshops that we laughed so hard that we had tears in our eyes.  For me, some of the best humor is what I call spontaneous humor.  It is humor that is unplanned and rises out of a comment that one of the participants makes.  What I have learned over the years is to play off the comments of others.  I have learned to use spontaneous humor to create laughter in the class.



I also think some of the best humor in my personal life is spontaneous humor.  We can be sitting around the kitchen table and someone says something that makes us giggle and soon we are laughing so hard that my belly is shaking like a bowl of jello and I can barely catch my breath.  I usually don't remember what triggered the laughter, but it feels good and it has shaken up my insides.

Five Ways to Add Laughter To Your Life

1. Don't take yourself so seriously.  Learn to laugh at your mistakes.


2. Find a friend or spouse who makes you laugh.


3. Watch and listen to humorous speakers and comedians whom you find funny.


4. Read books that make you laugh.


5. Look for the absurd situations in your life.

Jeanne Robertson

One of the funniest speakers I have ever heard is Jeanne Robertson.  Jeanne grew up in Graham, NC and represented the state as Miss North Carolina.  She was voted Miss Congeniality in the Miss America Pageant. After college, she coached basketball for nine years before becoming a professional speaker.  She stands 6'2" in her stocking feet.  For years she told funny stories about the beauty pageant.  Today she tells funny stories about growing old.  Here is a video of her sharing one of her stories, Don't Bungee Jump Naked.

Audrey Hepburn

"I love people who make me laugh.  I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh.  It cures a multitude of ills.  It is probably the most important thing in a person."

— Audrey Hepburn

British Actress

1929 - 1993

Commentary

I am by nature a very serious person.  Laughter does not come easy for me.  Yet, I agree whole-heartedly with Audrey Hepburn — laughter cures a multitude of ills.  My wife, on the other hand, is the family comedian and is always making people laugh.  She is the life of the party.  She is always telling me to smile more and I keep telling her to be more serious.  Yet it is probably our ability and willingness to laugh together that has helped our marriage to last more than forty years.

One of our daughters is like my wife.  She does silly things to make people laugh and she is always trying to make me laugh.  She gets excited when she discovers something that make me laugh.  She finds joy in living.  



What I have discovered is that I have a unique sense of humor.  Much of what others find funny I do not laugh at.  I don't laugh at slapstick comedy and I find most sitcoms boring. Yet, someone can say something that is not meant to be funny and I will laugh.  I often find satire to be very funny.



I have slowly learned to incorporate humor into my workshops and seminars, but I don't and can't tell jokes.  I don't have it in me.  Yet, I have found that I can play off the humor that is within every group.  I listen to what others say and spontaneously create short responses that continue and extend the humorous point that someone made.



I believe we have to be able to laugh at life.  Even the best laid plans of mice and men will and often do go astray.  The creative leader has to learn to laugh when things go wrong.  We have to learn not to take ourselves too seriously because in the end it doesn't matter when we are six feet under.  Humor is the key to survival in this difficult and challenging world in which we live.



What makes you laugh?  Do you laugh often?  Do you have those deep belly laughs where everything shakes and tears fill your eyes?  Laughter helps us to relax and unwind and frees up the creative juices.  Most of us serious folks need to learn to laugh more and enjoy ourselves.



Biography

Audrey Kathleen Ruston was the daughter of Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, a British subject, and Baroness Ella van Heemstra, a Dutch aristocrat.  Although she was born in Belgium, Audrey Hepburn held British citizenship through her father.  Hepburn spoke five languages: English, Dutch, French, Spanish and Italian.  Her parents divorced when she was a young girl.



The eleven-year-old Hepburn was living in the Netherlands when Germany invaded in 1940.  During the war, she suffered from malnutrition, developed anemia, respiratory problems and edema.  She secretly danced for groups of people to raise money for the Dutch resistance.  She occasionally  was a courier for the resistance, delivering messages and packages.



During the Dutch famine in the winter of 1944, Hepburn and her family resorted to making flour out of tulip bulbs to bake cakes and biscuits.  She passed the time by drawing.  After the war ended, Hepburn, who had studied ballet since she was five, took ballet lessons for three years from a leading figure in Dutch ballet.  



Hepburn moved to London to work as a chorus girl.  She performed in musical theater revues in 1948, 1949 and 1950.  In 1951, she acted in several British films.  Her big break came when she was selected to play Gigi in the Broadway play in November of 1951 which ran for 219 performances and earned her a Theatre World Award.



In 1953, William Wyler cast Hepburn in the starring role of Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck.  The film garnered her critical and commercial success including Academy Award for Best Actress.  She was signed to a seven picture contract with Paramount.  She starred opposite several of Hollywood's best actors including, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Henry Fonda, Fred Astaire, Cary Grant and Gary Cooper.



Video

Here is Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in the movie Sabrina.