The art of being happy requires extracting happiness from common things.
Hello Happiness Fan,
It seems that it has been a good week to celebrate with the news of the release of the Covid-19 vaccine. It is the news we have all been waiting to hear. It is the beginning of the end of the bizarre period in our lives. A period we will all be telling our grandchildren about – a story the children will never understand.
So it is time to put on an even bigger smile.
They say laughter is the best medicine. There's lots of evidence that laughter does lots of good things for us. It reduces pain and allows us to tolerate discomfort. It reduces blood sugar levels, increasing glucose tolerance in diabetics and nondiabetics alike. It relieves stress and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving our disease resistance. So laughing more is an excellent prescription for our health.
The reason that laughing is so good for you is because it stimulates endorphin. The word endorphin means "endogenous morphine." Endorphin evolved to mask pain, not to make us feel good. But laughing will make you feel good because genuine laughs are what it takes to release the happy chemical.
The good news is that you have great power over your laughter. There are three things you can do to improve your chances for real laughter. 1) Gather the funny things that make you laugh; 2) Determine your taste in humor; not everyone has the taste, and 3) Don't muffle your laughter. When it is funny, let out the laughs.
To help you to begin, I listed some funny stories. Of course, not every one of these will be appealing as we all have different tastes in humor. But see what makes you laugh and then aim to discover more of that kind of humor.
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My Tinder Date
My Tinder bio says that I have a corner office with views of the entire city, drive a $500,000 vehicle, and they pay me to travel.
My dates seem none too happy when they learn I'm a bus driver.
Barbara Walters once did a story on gender roles in Kabul, Afghanistan, several years before the Afghan conflict. She noted that women customarily walked five paces behind their husbands.
She recently returned to Kabul and observed that women still walked behind their husbands despite the oppressive Taliban regime's overthrow. Women seemed very happy to maintain the old custom.
Ms. Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, "Why do you still abide by an old custom that you once tried so desperately to change?"
The woman looked Ms. Walters straight in the eyes, and without hesitation, whispered, "Land mines."
A woman and a man are together in bed when her phone rings.
She picks up speaking in a cheery voice, "Hi. I'm so glad you called. Really? That's wonderful. I'm so happy for you. That sounds terrific. Great! Thanks. Okay. Bye-bye."
She hangs up, and the man asks, "Who was that?"
"Oh," she replies, "that was my husband telling me about the great time he's having on his fishing trip with you."
A Russian village has a tradition where each year they hold a very unusual contest, that consists of four challenges: First, the contestants must down a bottle of vodka, then they must swim across an icy lake, third the contestants must shake hands with a chained up wild bear on the other side, and finally they have to run to the closest village and make love to the most beautiful girl there.
The first contestant, 19 yeard old Yuri, slowly manages to drink the bottle of vodka, jumps into the icy waters, and falls unconscious shortly after due to hypothermia.
The second contestant, Vlad, a local hunter, downs the vodka, just about manages to swim across the lake, but as he tries to shake hands with the wild animal, it catches him, and he runs for his life.
Igor, the third contestant, a broad-shouldered tower of a man, downs the bottle of vodka, then asks for another to boast. He drinks that as well, swims across the lake in a minute, goes up to the bear, breaks its shackles, and starts wrestling with it. During the scuffle, they stumble into the forest and out of sight. In about twenty minutes, Igor walks out of the woods, all torn up, his clothes ripped to shreds. He shouts across the lake to the onlookers:
"Now, where's that girl I'm supposed to shake hands with?"
We are entering the holiday season. Some of the best holiday traditions are the ones that involve giving back—when you give, you get. Studies have shown that giving time or money boosts your feelings of happiness and connection. Please think about how you can make those that have made you happy this year, happy too.
Have a Merry Christmas and Happy Hanuka. I wish you only happiness. Until next time, have a great week.
Yours in happiness,
Bob
robertgilljr.com
18 Bank Street Suite 1, Summit NJ 07901 United States
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