Saptarshi Nag
One of the essential ingredients of a charming personality is sense of humor. A person devoid of such sense is like the cake without that beautiful topping. In today’s world where the tolerance level of people has seen a nadir, it is utmost essential for us to maintain sanity. Our sense of humor helps us in maintaining that level of composure in the turbulent times. Having sense of humor is something different from being comical. It’s subtle, it’s pleasant and it enriches a person and helps in staying calm in the most difficult time. Studies often show that your sense of humor will improve your physical and mental health, boost your charm and hone your personality skills.
One of the key factors in today’s world driving people to near madness is monotony of living the same life again and again. The world is moving at a pace never experienced before. But we maintain the same life day in and day out. Further, due to workload, the quality of our lifestyle is also downgrading day after day. This may often result in depression which may further cause several other ailments of severe nature. Sense of humor acts like our innate immunity against such lifestyle disorders. It triggers happiness, promotes the spirit of joy and adds exuberance to our life. As a result, a person with sense of humor finds any work more enjoyable compared to his counterpart devoid of it.
Can we improve our sense of humor? The answer is ‘No’. But hey, hang on. You can look at the brighter aspect. Once you kill your negative ego, once you understand how little you are in comparison to the vastness of the world you live in, you may soon start finding things more interesting. You are stiff at cracking jokes. Does not matter. Take out your time to laugh at your own silly things. Instead of boasting publicly how good you are, you may sometimes mimic your own deeds and inspire your fellowmen that they could have done that work much better than what you had done. Such self-deprecating humor has its own advantage. You are enjoying humor not at the cost of other’s emotional feelings. Once we start shedding off our perception of superiority, onus on our shoulder becomes lighter and life does not remain a burden to carry on. It rather is an enjoyable journey. And yes, did I forget to mention that you really need to laugh a lot to hone your humor. Okay, you may think that laughing at public places without any reason may lead you to trouble. You have your own room. You have your bathroom. There is no dearth of places where you can laugh. Once you do, even if you are not born with excellent sense of humor, you are sure to develop a sense of attachment to life. That yields the same positive result.
It is of utmost importance to understand the difference between subtle and crude humor. People without the subtlety often annoy others. Their crude humor often results in hurting the sentiments and emotions of their fellowmen. If the humor is raw and crude, it may often end up being obnoxious. Whom to pick from Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Trump?
It’s not bad to laugh at a crude joke sometimes. In fact, everyone of us do so. Don’t you enjoy those slapstick comedies to get some relief from the mundane stress? But it cannot be the way of life. Sense of humor can be. And there lies the difference. You cannot pass a joke on a grave situation. Having crude, insensitive humor is just like that. But your subtle sense of humor is something that helps you in finding the silver lining in the most difficult of situations.
Your action earns you respect but your sense of humor makes people love you. Remember the famous quote of Abraham Lincoln? “When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Guilty’.” Isn’t it still so relevant in today’s world?
After meeting King George V of the United Kingdom after the failed Second Round Table Conference, when Mahatma Gandhi was asked about what the King had said to him about his loincloth, Gandhiji is said to have wittily remarked, “What can he say about my dress? He himself was wearing enough for the two of us.”
Such level of sense of humor is sadly missing among the leaders across the world today. This is probably one of the cardinal reasons for the growing hatred allover the world. A simple issue is blowing out of proportion. A simple comment which can be easily overlooked is being used to spread violence and murder people. How often we see our leaders possessing self-deprecating humor? When was the last time you saw one politician tackling verbal attacks on him by means of his sheer wit? The only reason for such parochial politics across the globe is the dearth of sense of humor. People have gone to an extent where they cannot withstand a simple joke on someone they admire, let alone a joke on themselves. And this gloomy problem has its only solution lying in awakening our inherent sense of humor. Every person is born with some degree of humor, just like they are bestowed with intellect. Cultivating that humor can mitigate a lot of issues around us.
Remember, the world torn apart by two world wars needed one Charlie Chaplin to survive the trauma. We are now in even more need of another savior like the great Chaplin who can make us laugh, who can make us feel good, who can bring hope back. Nothing works like the sense of humor after all.
