About Laughter
Oct 28 2009

This post called About Laughter came to me while I was in the shower the other day.  I guess I was thinking about About Sleep, About Writing and About Car Paint when the word “laughter” popped into my head and then a blog post started forming.

Laughter is the best medicine is an age old saying and according to: Laughter is the ‘best medicine for your heart on the University of Maryland Medical Center, Laughter is the Best Medicine on HelpGuide.org, and Laughter is the Best Medicine on Science Daily, laughter can help prevent heart attacks, help the terminally ill, create great working environments, make your employees think you are more effective, relieve stress & anxiety, etc.  A good laugh probably activates some feel good stuff (e.g., endorphins) in your body.

I have some funny people in my family.  My late grandfather had this mix of British and Sri Lankan humor that had a high occurrence of bathroom (or lack thereof) references.  Us kids thought it was gross and funny at the same time.  Even after he had a sextuple bypass at the Cleveland Clinic as well as on his death bed a decade or so later, he was still being funny and irreverent about life and religion.  I never could figure out if he was agnostic or not because he would quote the Bible, know hymns by heart, and later in the day make some funny derogatory remark about God, religion and some of his hyper religious relatives.  My mother has a similar sense of humor.   She also makes up words and describes people in caricature-ally true and funny ways.  She even has animal nicknames for all of us kids.  Sri Lanka was a British colony for quite some time and had a strong British influence for decades afterward and if you’ve ever watched Monty Python or Blackadder you know what I mean.

I also work with some funny people and a day doesn’t usually go by without a laugh or two or three.  Our office manager and I have a similar sense of humor, so she and I send some pretty funny emails around that others can’t keep up with sometimes.  We find many of the same things funny and find ourselves laughing at the dumbest of things.  We also sometimes cross some lines but fortunately we work in a laid back environment.  I have to say that I have met at least one of my 2009 non-resolutions which is to laugh more.  I feel like I have laughed a lot more this year than in past years.

When I interned in college, I worked with a great bunch of interns and we were all in stitches often.  That’s where I met my friend who I went to the beach with back in June.  He, I, and others in our group would come up with practical jokes, say the weirdest things and email about roller coasters and bowling and how they related to life and certain parts of life that most people aren’t comfortable talking about.  I remember laughing so much that summer.

Laughter is so important and can help through even the toughest of times.  We just can’t take things too seriously in life, start-ups, and margarita’s.   Maybe one day I’ll feel comfortable enough to show more of my humor on this blog, but I’m just not sure people will get it and then I’ll feel more stupid than I sometimes do!

An entrepreneurial endeavor without fun, social time, and laughter is not a place I want to be.  To me any good company culture has to include smiles, jokes, and many LOL’s.  😀

Now go make someone laugh and if you find yourself laughing until your belly hurts, you can tell people you exercised and did some sit-ups/crunches too!

Author: Aruni | Filed under: entrepreneurship, Just For Fun | Tags: company culture, laughter, laughter is the best medicine | 1 Comment »

---