*LOL*

When I first entered the internet world, the first word I learnt was probably, “LOL”. I remember receiving emails from a friend using “LOL” very often. One day, I gathered up my “courage” and asked, “What’s LOL?” I learnt that day, it’s Laugh Out Loud.

LOL does not identify with me much. I have not used it ever before. I am more “disciplined” because I prefer smile 🙂

Yesterday, I had lunch with my best friend of my secondary school days. After lunch, I showed her some of the old photographs on my laptop. Connie said she has lost all her secondary school day photos. When we were on a photograph of all the girl classmates, we both said with the same accord,

“The more beautiful ones should have been seated on the front row.”

Our words hung in the air for a moment and then we both burst into laughters.

At that moment, I went back to the old school days when we often LOL.

Laughter is indeed a gift from God – it is the essence of joy, one of the fruits of the holy spirit.

I lifted this from an old issue of the Guidepost. Probably, giving some thoughts to LOL?

Here are some ways I’m trying to limber up my willingness to laugh. Maybe they’ll help you, too.

Practice seeing the humour in situations. We live near a high school where the marching band practices relentlessly, with endless squeaks and squawks. It would be easy to let it get to me. Instead I try to imagine the whole neighborhood breathing a windy sigh of relief when a tune finally emerges.

When you catch yourself mentally working on a grievance or rehearsing a complaint, make a deliberate effort to see it in a humorous light. Pretend you’re telling an audience about it in a way designed to make them laugh.

Know the difference between a mishap and a catastrophe. One test: A mishap is something you’d laugh about if it happened to someone else. Learn to laugh when embarrassment is “on you.”

Recently an angel-food cake I’d made for a women’s meeting at my church collapsed—on one side only. Having no time to bake another, I cut it in half. By the time I got to church, even the “good” half had begun to sag. At that point, I remarked, “Today we have cakes made by Betty Crocker, Julia Child and Calamity Jane.” No mishap is a total failure if it generates a good laugh.

Apply humor when interacting with those closest to you. The burned chops, the forgotten anniversary, the unfilled gas tank can be seen as part of the ongoing domestic comedy instead of added to a grievance list.

Not only marriages benefit from laughter. So do parent-child and student-teacher relationships, in-law difficulties, on-the-job problems.

Don’t take yourself too seriously. People who feel they have to be perfect and indispensable m and in complete control m set themselves up for a life of incredible strain. Personally, I’ve had to resign several times from the self-appointed role of Superintendent of the Neighborhood.

We all have genuine problems that are not laughing matters. This makes laughter all the more precious—and it makes needless aggravation a terrible waste of spiritual resources. No wonder one of the best-known Bible proverbs is 17:22, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.”

Laughter gives balance to a world, which might otherwise sink into misery. When you have a choice—choose to laugh!