Laugh the little crises

Laugh the little crises

Richard Carlson
Knigth Ridder

I just bought a great stone with the words "Today's Crisis is tomorrow's joke" engraved on it. I absolutely love it, and its displayed prominently in my home office. i look at it several times a day to remind me that while its certainly true that life is full of dramas, its also true that dramas come and go.

Before i go on, please know that when i say " Todays Crisis is tomorrow joke", I'm obviously not refferring to hurricane Katrina, a sick child or family member, your home burning to the ground, or any of the hundreds of other life-changing events that can be categorized as a true crisis.

Instead, i'm referring to the virtually unlimited number of relatively minor events that most of us tend to stew about that, in retrospect, really arent that big of a deal-Everything from the imperfections of other people, to things not quite living up to our expectations, to minor disppointments.

Have you ever been to a family or high School Reunion and listened to the conversations. It's fun, in part, because the conversation sometimestie into this bit of wisdom. so many things that used to be seen as "big,giant, huge, emergencies" are now the topics of great jokes.

They are funny beacuse they are seen with a bit of distance. we may have been furious at someone, for example, for God knows that....and now it seems so silly and insignificant.

The trick to getting to the point where life doesnt seems like just one crisis after another is to see it as funny earlier-not after the fact, but actually while we're acting a little crazy and taking life a bit too seriously.