We all know that humour is magical. We all have hung around people who make us laugh till our stomachs hurt. We all probably can even remember moments where we rolled in laughter at a joke we can’t even remember. It’s special. It’s magical.
When we grow up, we often are told that there are funny guys and then the rest of us. It’s just like we are told that there are the smart guys and then the rest of us, the sporty guys and then the rest of us.
And, as with most such generalizations, it is flawed. (I initially wrote all such generalizations. The irony of making a generalization hit me just about then.. haha)
Let’s take playing the guitar as an example.
We may have grown up seeing some incredible musical talent learn the guitar and master it. Sure. You remember that ridiculously talented girl from that musical family who started playing the guitar in her diapers?
Does that mean you and I can’t play the guitar though? Of course not. Not only can we play but with some dedicated practice, we can pretty good. Are we likely to ever make Bryan Adams jealous of our talent? Probably not. But, we can get good enough to play along with songs, play along with friends singing, maybe play in an amateur band, think of musical analogies to solve problems among many other.
It’s similar with a sense of humour.
Humour is largely comedic timing and a way with words. Both of these can be learnt over time. We can learn comedic timing from all those sit-coms and stand up comedians who make us laugh and we can learn a way with words by practicing jokes from time to time.
How do we practice jokes? Go out and find humorous jokes, quotes for different situations and test them out. The learning is massive. Over time, we realize that jokes are highly sensitive and can go terribly wrong. What’s funny in one place is often frowned upon elsewhere. But, we learn as we go..
After a period of time, though, we begin to trust ourselves to spout a funny line in a serious situation and inject some much needed humour in it.
I haven’t done any research or seen much data around this but instinct says humour is likely going to be a big help to take us far in life. Of late, I’m realizing that humour is an incredibly powerful force in conflict resolution (more on that someday). And, the ability to see humour in tough situations is one that’s great for our spirit. I can attest to that from a bit of experience.
And no, you’ll probably never be as funny as a Louis C K.
But, you’ll probably laugh a lot and make others around you laugh a lot too.
PS: Humor, like many other things in life, is a journey in failure. When you get started learning to use humour, please expect to fail.. a lot! Luckily, like all those things in life, it gets better with practice..
A Learning a Day 