I've just finished my first week in a new job – working as a Dads Advisor for Wales’ flagship early years programme, Flying Start.
What a whirlwind!
It’s been quite a shock to the system, meeting so many new people. You see, for the last 7+ years I've been working for/by myself, and ever since the pandemic most of that work moved online, which means I've largely been sat at a desk, in front of a screen (or on my own somewhere, in front of a camera).
So I reckon I've met more actual real life human beings—colleagues, parents, kids—in the last week, than I did in that entire time!
And there's one thing I've noticed that's been universal; one human attribute that, until now, I hadn't really noticed as being so fundamental:
Everybody has a sense of humour! No matter your age, your circumstances, your background or your outlook, it's one of the basic building blocks of the ‘humanOS’ operating system.
Now, the age, circumstance, background & outlook ensures that the way that sense of humour expresses itself is different for everybody, but the capacity for humour itself—for smiling, for laughter, for joy—that's part of the fabric of being human.
So much so, that today I've updated my left/right-hemisphere-ways-of-being diagram to include a “sense of humour” – it should have been there, right from the start, and I can't believe I missed it!
And you don't have to look very far in your own experience (and that of others) to see that there's only really one thing that ever gets in the way of experiencing that built-in sense of humour of yours:
🤔
It's so consistent, you could think of it as a super-reliable indicator for how you're doing:
- Carefree, connected, present → sense of humour 😄
- Over-thinking, separate, time-bound → sense of humour failure 😣
Now, this being a publication all about the inside-out nature of life, there's an invitation for you: to consider that things might not be as they seem.
For although it looks like your sense of humour is a result of your current circumstances (i.e. things going well → I have a sense of humour), what if that's just a trick of the mind?
What if it's the other way round? What if it's how lightly (or not) we're holding our thinking that determines the quality of the experience we're currently having? To take those two ways-of-being further:
- Connected & present → sense of humour → circumstances present no problems 🤷🏻♂️
- Over-thinking & stuck in stories → sense of humour obscured → exact same circumstances destroy us 😩
Worth pondering!
Of course, people like Richard Carlson have been pointing out this simple, almost too-obvious state of affairs to us for years.
In his best-selling, evergreen book, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, there's a chapter called Lighten Up, where he says:
“People are frustrated and uptight about virtually everything … you name it, we lose perspective over it!”
The cause?
“The root of being uptight is our unwillingness to accept life as being different, in any way, from our expectations … We spend our lives wanting things, people and events to be just as we want them to be – and when they're not, we fight and we suffer.”
It's when we get attached to ego's needs—to the mind's stories we're innocently living inside—that it looks like our sense of humour is no more… and life appears hard, and serious.
But it's not. It's just our thinking, temporarily obscuring our True Nature.
Which means the solution Richard has for us is almost too-obvious as well:
“When you let go of your expectations—when you accept life as it is—you're free. To hold on is to be serious and uptight. To let go is to lighten up.”
It's that simple.
Which, if you're in touch with your sense of humour this morning, you'll see is really quite funny!
😆
Giles
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Giles P Croft
A joke from an enlightened man