Day 186 of The 365 Day Experiment. I Crack Myself Up.

Last night, in the middle of a raging snowstorm, I laughed out loud.  By myself.  Twice.  In the span of two minutes. 

I was in that kind of mood.  Something had set me off earlier, and had me in a fit of uncontrollable laughter for a solid few minutes.  And when I recovered from that, a random trip to the bathroom had me cracking up about directions on a bottle of soap.  I don’t know why I found that funny, but I stood at the sink washing my hands, reading the instructions and laughing out loud. Can people really not figure out how to get the soap onto their hands?  Is it necessary to tell them they must rinse after? And because I am me, I did not follow the directions. And somehow, my hands ended up clean.  And I got a good chuckle.

I am far from the funniest person I know.  Yet, I’ve surrounded myself with completely amusing people in my life and they have clearly upped my game.  I think my sense of humor has evolved as I’ve aged.  Perhaps there is something to being happy.  I believe I could make an argument to suggest that having a good sense of humor is a key ingredient to being happy.  It’s also pretty essential to being happy on your own.  And I’m not talking the bs humor-to-hide-the-pain stuff.  I’m talking a really good sense of humor.

But what does it mean when you crack yourself up?  I’m offered triggered at the most random of moments.  I can be reminded of a distant memory, or at something as stupid and mundane as directions on a bottle of hand soap.  The fact that those hit at the most random of times makes them even more entertaining and ridiculous.  The fact that I can superimpose those silly thoughts onto something utterly mundane makes them ridiculous..and therefore wildly amusing.  At least to me, which is usually the only person I am trying to entertain.

I once read that people who laugh at themselves are narcissistic. That seems a little overblown.  If I laughed at all my own stuff and thought I was wildly funny, then maybe.  I’m far from that.  I’ll be the first one to to point out that I am typically laughing at something completely idiot.  Just because I think it’s funny doesn’t mean anyone else will.  And that’s ok.  It’s the art I create for myself.  If others are around to appreciate, great. If not, no worries.   I am at peace knowing I am approaching the world finding humor in the banal and taken a lighter approach to the monotony.