“The most important thing to make it through marriage is a sense of humor.” This was my grandmother’s advice. It was her expression of what my grandfather, who had recently passed away, would have said. This advice has somehow stuck with me as a defined moment. No, I’m not married; nor do I plan on getting married any time soon. This advice was actually given to my sister at her wedding reception this past summer. Funny that the best advice someone has given me, or at least that I can remember, doesn’t even literally apply to my own situation. However, these words were not just advice to my sister, but the way of life for my grandfather. It is my grandfather’s philosophy, as described by my grandmother in her short yet meaningful advice, which has truly impacted me.
As I realized in the moments after my grandmother’s speech, facing life with a sense of humor is a much wiser philosophy than one may realize. Not only must one be able to accept their mistakes in stride and even be able to laugh at him or herself, but one must also maintain a level perspective that does not allow him or her to be swept up in temporary crisis. In addition, a sense of humor creates a positive outlook on life. The value of a positive attitude is much greater than many believe. A positive attitude can take an entire day and completely reverse the way you recall its events. Even before the night was over I saw the application of my grandmother’s valuable words.
I could handle being a groomsman and helping to prepare the elements of the wedding. The one thing I wasn’t ready for, the dancing. Before I moved to Connecticut I had never danced accept in my ballroom dancing classes. Moving to a new school in tenth grade, I had to learn to build up a confidence to make a fool of myself at sweet sixteens. I had applied my grandfather’s philosophy and it had paid off. Now, however, I was faced against the same demon. I could dance to your usual hip hop garbage, but when you bring a live band playing old hits it creates a whole new skill, or at least that’s what I thought. As the formal dance between the bride and groom ended I was realized I would have go out on the dance floor and attempt to dance. In that moment my grandmother’s words came through my mind. Why not make a fool of myself and just get out there and dance? You might as well just have fun.
The first song began and immediately I grabbed my cousin (a girl) sitting beside me and said to her sister, “don’t worry you’re next.” Before I could think enough to become self conscious I was dancing beside everyone else. As I looked around I realized there wasn’t any secret to dancing to this music that everyone else knew except for me. I hadn’t missed out on some key instruction that said how one should dance to the music at a reception. Everyone was just as clueless as I was. My confidence grew. As the night ran on I danced to nearly every song, when I wasn’t trying to stop my cousins’ antisocial retreats from the dance floor. I was enjoying myself tremendously. In fact, I was much happier than my cousins. While they were concerned with how they looked, I was laughing at my horrible skills and enjoying the band’s amazing sound.
For the rest of the night my confidence was very strong. I started a Congo line that eventually engulfed the entire wedding reception. One may have also seen me sitting on a couch with my cousins (both girls) on each side and my arms around them. By the end of the night I felt as though I had gotten every bit of enjoyment out of the reception as I possibly could have. This overflow of happiness could all be traced back to that philosophy of facing life with a sense of humor.
Unfortunately, sometimes I don’t always follow my grandfather’s example. These situations are sadly quite common. One key event that comes to mind is the Robber Barons project. This project, a part of my AP history course, was an economic simulation of the early 1900’s. The key element of the project was competitiveness, an atmosphere which drains one’s sense of humor. For me, the effect was even worse. As one will encounter innumerable times, the group I was in made a major mistake. We fell prisoner to the monopolist we had tried to avoid the most, J.P. Morgan. Our deal with Morgan signed away more steel, we were Andrew Carnegie, than anyone could reasonably need in the simulation for a loan that was so risky our group couldn’t safely use the money.
I regrettably do not deal well with being taken advantage of. When this condition is coupled with teasing… it does not end well, as anyone in that class can recall. During the review of our steel business I took the criticisms quite personally, especially those that although mocked our decisions were intended to be humorous. Instead of letting the comments pass by and laughing at them myself or at least seeing them as just mistakes, I let the commentary build to my frustration. At that moment I saw each of the remarks as a personal attack, a ridicule of my failure. My reaction to all of the aggravation was not one of my proudest moments. I responded to the mockery with an exclamation that quieted the room so fast that from that instant I knew I was in trouble.
It took a long time to recover from that disaster. If only I had retained my sense of humor during that project the next few weeks would have been much different. Once I lost my sense of humor I lost my perspective. Without perspective one becomes swept up in the events of the present and is unable to see how foolish some of his or her decisions and assumptions are.
From experience, a sense of humor is vital to an enjoyable life. What you do and what happens to you does not matter as much as how you react to those happenings. I am thankful that I have grandparents who are able to pass on this wisdom so that I may apply this philosophy to my own life much earlier. On the other hand, I will never perfectly achieve this way of life. However, knowing and experiencing another attitude towards life is instrumental in understanding one’s current way of life and its effect on one’s happiness and interpersonal relations. Then maybe someday after I learn it the hard way, as everyone must, I will be able to see that all I really needed was to face life with a sense of humor.
