Why Humor Is The Most Important Character Trait: A Plea To Stop Taking Life So Seriously

“A day without laughter is a day wasted,” Charlie Chaplin

At some point in my life, I discovered that making people laugh was the greatest joy I could experience. However, for a younger version of myself, it had to be intentional. If people laughed at something I did by mistake, or that I perceived to make me look dumb, I would be embarrassed and vow to myself to never do it again.

As time has gone on, I’ve learned to laugh about the things I can’t control as well. Jokes about my mom's death rolled off my tongue, as my dad and brothers looked at me with a smile that sometimes seemed as if they were concerned about the state of my mind. It was easier for them to laugh about what was happening when my mom was here, laughing with us. I watched as my mom used humor to find joy in each day she spent battling cancer, and I don't want to let that humor die with her. 

We get so caught up in the seriousness of things because things are serious. People are sick, children are dying, we continue to see high rates of anxiety and depression, our economy is failing, among SO many other things. Anyone with a moral compass would feel some sort of guilt experiencing joy in a time where it seems like a crisis is all around us. It has become a norm for me to see comments on anything promoting joy or laughter that say something along the lines of, “This is so tone-deaf. Look at what else is happening.” In a lot of these circumstances, the only clue to their ignorance is their joy. 

There are ignorant people in this world, but I would even go as far as to argue that joyfully ignorant people have more of an impact than non-joyful, knowledgeable people. The reality is that, as important as it is to spread awareness of the misfortunes of our world, it is equally important to acknowledge the need for joy and laughter to get us through these times. 

The hardest thing for my mom, funny enough, was losing her hair. Not the many allergic reactions she had to Chemo, not having to cut out most of the foods she loved, but losing her hair. If you know my mom, you know what her hair looked like, and you understand. If you didn’t know her, that might sound insane. Especially given the fact that she had access to the best wigs money could buy. My mom had been coloring her hair blonde for twenty years, and I think for her, along with being afraid of what she would look like bald, because who wouldn’t, it was the last part of her body that she had to surrender control of. At that moment, she felt as if she had lost her autonomy, and her identity became: cancer patient.

On Mother’s Day two years before she passed, I helped her shave her head. I hyped her up because she did pull off the look. We bought headbands, wigs, and scarves to make her feel better about losing her hair. She never left the house without a wig on. After she was able to stop her chemo treatments, and some of her hair grew back, she started bleaching it blonde. At this point, I was living in Nashville, so I was in my apartment three and a half hours away, when my mom sent me a selfie of her smiling and said, “Do I look like Guy Fieri?” I could not stop laughing, and when I called her, neither could she. My mom used humor to remind herself that she still has control over how she views situations, regardless of her body that was actively betraying her. I firmly believe my mom would not have lived as long as she did without her relentless search for laughter, which was mostly directed at herself. My mom’s laugh is what I miss most about her, although I can still hear it clearly most of the time.

Challenge: Laugh at something you never thought could be funny.