I had an important life reminder moment this week, a sort of light bulb experience. I was challenged on the importance of experiencing life with humor and joy. Especially with loved ones. Highlighted in this reminder is the importance of laughing with those you love.
We are certainly living in stressful, challenging times and this makes it difficult to savor life with laughter and joy. And it’s certainly not easy to step outside the crush of modern life and take a moment to laugh with family.
But it’s still important. Take time to laugh with those you love. Here’s my story.
I went to my daughter’s house this week and when I arrived, the grand kids wanted me to read stories to them. Well, grandpa is always down with story reading, so we got after it. As I read to my grandson and granddaughter, we had a moment of laughter that reminded me of how important it is to take time to laugh.
As my grandson handed me a book to read, I noticed it was cover side down, so rascally grandpa decided to play a prank and read it backwards. He immediately knew grandpa was playing a joke and recognized this was the wrong way to read a book. I tried to convince him that no, books are read back to front, this was completely normal.
He didn’t buy it.
We tried again and I tried the same trick to check his memory and of course he spotted the deception right away. We laughed and despite my strong argument this was actually the correct way to read a book, he knew better. As I tried a couple more times, the laughter increased until the house was full of the sound of grandkids and grandpa laughing together.
We laughed at the craziness of reading a book backwards. I even tried a few variations, side ways, upside down, but he spotted my tricks each time. We belly laughed for several minutes over the absurdity of it all. Finally, I surrendered and read the book the correct way.
Later, my grandson broke down to his mom the joke grandpa played on him and his sister. He spent several minutes describing and explaining his fun experience. His mom later asked me what happened and we laughed as I explained my failed subterfuge.
And after his mom and I spoke, I had my light bulb moment, it’s important to take time to laugh. I was reminded of the value of laughing together. Several years ago, there was a song with a phrase in it that became kind of a theme in its day. There were bumper stickers, T shirts, coffee mugs, everyone was talking about it. Our culture grabbed the idea and embraced it’s message.
Here’s the phrase: “Take time to smell the roses.” And of course, the idea is to enjoy life and appreciate beauty by taking the time to enjoy it because life is short. Well, I want to say the same thing to you about my reminder this week.
Take time to laugh together with those you love.
Have a great week,
Ernie