{"id":4415,"date":"2011-03-21T18:59:12","date_gmt":"2011-03-21T22:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/?p=4415"},"modified":"2011-03-21T18:59:12","modified_gmt":"2011-03-21T22:59:12","slug":"laughing-all-the-way-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/laughing-all-the-way-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Laughing All the Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Should I ever wake up some morning and think, \u201cI guess it\u2019s time to get a job,\u201d I know exactly how I\u2019ll abort that thought. I\u2019ll just get in my car and head for the nearest freeway.<\/p>\n

A few minutes spent in rush hour traffic would certainly bring me back to my senses. It\u2019s not just the slowness of heavy traffic that annoys me: the behavior of my\u00a0fellow drivers is one of the few things guaranteed to make me lose my cool. No thoughts of universal oneness and love of humanity surface when I\u2019m spending time in traffic.<\/p>\n

Shortly after being inspired by Marianne Williamson\u2019s Everyday Grace<\/em><\/strong>, I decided to try a new approach. When a fellow driver would threaten my life, I\u2019d send them a silent blessing and then say a short prayer that went something like, \u201cDear Lord, please send that person better driving skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

I figured there was a hidden opportunity here to start shaping up all the folks who didn\u2019t bother using their turn signals or who were distracted by a fascinating phone conversation.<\/p>\n

It calmed me a little as I recalled the Biblical admonition to pray without ceasing and\u00a0realized that bad drivers were propelling me to a constant state of prayer. I had no idea that another weapon awaited me.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, I decided to sit in on a Laughter Workshop taught by Kim McIntyre Cannold<\/a>. \u00a0After all, I love to laugh and I thought it would be fun.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t expect to learn something so amazing, something that has proved invaluable\u2014especially in traffic.<\/p>\n

Cannold, who is certified by the Association for Applied and\u00a0 Therapeutic Humor, opened her workshop by talking about the different kinds of laughter and had us all try out various types from tittering to belly laughing. Then she boldly suggested that we could schedule a laugh fest every day and simply laugh our heads off for no reason\u00a0other than it would improve our emotional and physical well-being.<\/p>\n

That was news to me. Laughing for the sake of laughing? While laughing as a healing agent has long been known, I\u2019d never heard it suggested that we could just laugh without any outside stimulus.<\/p>\n

Then she went even farther and asked us to list things that bugged us. Bad drivers headed the group list. She proposed that when we found ourselves in those normally upsetting situations that we abandon our usual angry reaction and laugh instead.<\/p>\n

This seemed a bit over the top to me, but I decided to give it a whirl.<\/p>\n

The next time a driver cut me off, I decided to laugh, although it seemed a bit hypocritical. To my astonishment, it felt great. It felt much better than fuming to myself, which didn\u2019t change the situation.<\/p>\n

Laughing didn\u2019t change the other driver\u2019s behavior, either, (and I figured my prayers might take a little longer to be answered), but it sure changed me. It was obvious hat the one who laughs gets the reward.<\/p>\n

Laughter and prayer are certainly important for the entrepreneurial life so be generous with both. Look for the funny side and you\u2019ll discover there\u2019s no shortage of goofiness to help you meet your daily quota of laughs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should I ever wake up some morning and think, \u201cI guess it\u2019s time to get a job,\u201d I know exactly how I\u2019ll abort that thought. I\u2019ll just get in my car and head for the nearest freeway. A few minutes spent in rush hour traffic would certainly bring me back to my senses. It\u2019s not…<\/p>\n

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