Sense of Humor – Your Natural Coping Mechanism

Sense of Humor – Your Natural Coping Mechanism

Within all of us is the potential to experience life as an adventure, or as a series of unfortunate events that lead to our eventual and unavoidable death.

Like yours, my life is tough. I worked hard for so many years, and sometimes with bosses that had more testicles than brain-cells. I’ve had stressful times as a husband, as a father and as a son. My life is tough, but I enjoy it. I enjoy it, because I know that there is always something I can extract and laugh about.

I wanted to detail what a sense of humor means to me, and how I’ve used it to cope with difficult situations in my life. More importantly, I want you to truly appreciate how lucky you are if you are a humorous person. The ability to smile during times of stress is a gift that not only improves your experience of life, but also energizes those around you.


The Bon Jovi Bandit.

Allow me to share with you one of my experiences as an intern at a large plastic manufacturing plant. I was 20 at the time, and forced to share a portable office with a senior engineer. I was told that this man was a motorcycle enthusiast, and part time singer in a Bon Jovi cover band. I thought we’d have a great time.

I was wrong. On my first day in the office, I spoke with a salesman who was to provide the electrical components for my three-month project. On the phone, I made small polite chit-chat with the man, placed the order and hung up. Keeping in mind that my senior office companion has no authority over me whatsoever, he decided to share his thoughts about my phone conversation:

“You’re not his friend. Next time, just tell him what you want and get off the phone!”

I was speechless. I wasn’t expecting my first interaction with this man to be so confrontational. After a few seconds, I asked in confusion:

“Was I speaking loudly?”

He replied,

“You’re not loud. That’s not my problem. What do you care how his day is? Why ask? It’s very insincere. If you called me and asked me how I was going, I’d tell you stop wasting my time and tell me what the hell you want.”

Immediately it hit me. This man is a social moron. It became clear why his shared office is the only one that was vacant. No other full-time employee wanted to be in a room with him. For the next three months, I heard the man laugh only once. He had no sense of humor at all. If misery loves company, this idiot must have been misery’s best friend.

Two months into my internship, I became idle as my project reached early completion. I spent hours on the phone joking and laughing with my girlfriend, while he sat there and looked at me from the corner of his eye. Utilizing the knowledge of his side-career as a Bon Jovi cover-band singer, I would infuriate him with stupid questions. I would ask things like:

“What does Bon Jovi eat to look so youthful?”

“Has Bon Jovi ever come to see any of your gigs?”

“Do you ever think that sometimes you sang a song better than Bon Jovi would have?”

“If I wanted to start my own Bon Jovi cover band, would you be able to give me any tips?”

“Do you think Bon Jovi is sick of the Prayer Living song?”

Note: I always referred to the song as Prayer Living because I knew it drove him up the wall. He would correct me every time.

His complete lack of humor allowed me to keep this up for a while before he caught on.

In my newly found spare time in the office, I began to chronicle a fictitious adventure based on my Bon Jovi cover-band singing office compadre. After completing the small journal (only a few pages), I made a large printed cover and conveniently placed a copy on my desk. As expected, he spotted it and reported it to my supervisor.

I was immediately called into my supervisor’s office. He asked, “What the hell is this?”, as he handed me a stapled document titled:

Mopey Dick

A classic novel by Jay Morrissey

Synopsis: A man’s journey from listening to Bon Jovi, to pretending to be Bon Jovi (on weekends). Lock your daughters up, he also owns a motorbike.

Over the following days, the short story of Mopey Dick made the rounds. Apparently, my supervisor felt that a peer-review was in order. This pissed off Mopey to no end. On my last day at the internship, he stood stiff like a dead corpse, and said:

“I want you to know that I really don’t appreciate your humor.”

That’s okay buddy. I don’t expect you to appreciate something you don’t have.

You may be asking yourself, why this experience is of any importance. This gentleman and I worked in the same office, with the same people, and under almost identical conditions. He was miserable the whole time, and despite his effort to bring me down to his level, I actually enjoyed myself (albeit at his expense).

I made my work day enjoyable by being humorous and approachable, while he alienated himself from his colleagues. So often, the problems we have arise from our attitude rather than circumstance. Even if this guy was Anna Kournikova’s massage therapist, he’d still be a miserable twat.



Most Wanted: A Sense of Humor

What do women want? What do men want? You already know the answer. Time and again, surveys have found that a sense of humor (along with confidence) to be a dominant factor when choosing a suitable candidate for dating. At face value, we can take this to mean that we want our date to be fun and funny. It’s only natural that we assume a better experience with someone who makes us smile.

In my experience, there is another compelling reason that we seek a partner with a sense of humor. Life is hard. Times get tough. There are moments in our existence when we feel stressed, hopeless and looking for strength in our partner. We want somebody who won’t freak out when we’re freaking out. A partner with a sense of humor can help us through such times. When a person is emotionally down, and their partner approaches it with a calming sense of amusement, it can break the cycle of stress and wallowing.

On the other hand, if your partner has little to no sense of humor, they are also far less likely to be a positive influence on you when you’re under emotional stress. Your boat’s got a puncture and they will sit in it while you both sink.

Humor is an amazing coping mechanism. This stability doubles in strength when both partners in a relationship yield this quality.



Nobody Likes a Grouch

Have you ever met somebody that makes you feel energized? When you’re with them, they bring to the surface the young and fun part of you. What is it about them that makes you feel this way? I bet you top dollar that it was their sense of humor. These people are attractive because of the way we feel around them.

Even when times are tough, they’ll crack a smile and joke about it. Not only is this quality attractive, but it makes us feel stable too. If they have a sense of humor about a difficult situation, than so can we. It is empowering.

Let’s contrast this against people that drain the life out of us. You know exactly the type of person I’m talking about. You dread having to talk to them. They are always dictating, complaining or moping. When they ring, you don’t pick up the phone. When they walk over to your desk, you try to avoid eye-contact hoping they’ll leave you alone.

Are their lives really much different to yours? Probably not. But the way they approach everyday issues is what separates them from the former. These people do not have a sense of humor, and they will be relegated to social mediocrity until they change their attitude.



The Ultimate Coping Mechanism

In any undesirable situation, you have two options:

1. Wallow, and repeat

2. Suck it up, and move forward

Having a sense of humor allows you to jump straight to the second option. Your ability to change your circumstances may be limited, but your ability to change your perception is unbounded. If you can do nothing about the situation you’re in, then stop torturing yourself and find something humorous about it. By focussing on a humorous element, you’ve automatically broken through the self destructive thought process.

In Love

As a young man, I was in love with an amazing girl and we ended up parting ways. This left me in quite a state. For months, I was wallowing in self pity, reflecting on what went wrong and questioning myself. One night over dinner, I relayed my thoughts to a close friend (who had heard it all before). He then began to mock me… publicly. In a whiny voice, he pronounced:

“Oooh… Look at me. I was in love. I’ll never be in love again. Oooh… Please come back to me… Has anybody seen my balls? I can’t find them. She must have stolen them along with my broken, achy heart…”

It was embarrassing and hysterical. He just kept going, and I had tears of laughter running down my face. He grabbed onto a nearby column (as if to hug it), and yelled “NOOOH… please don’t leave me!!”. Of course, I never said those things and he had made them up to present how pathetic and pointless my wallowing was.

For the years that followed, I would always laugh when I thought about that night. Anytime my relationships came to a close, the image of my friend mocking me publicly would cause me to chuckle. It’s hard to feel sorry for yourself when you’re laughing.

In Death

UK comedian Ricky Gervais once commented on the death of his mother. While looking for a casket to bury her, he joked with the funeral home attendant about using only her initials on the casket so as to get a discount. The man was taken back by this, and didn’t know how to respond.

Gervais is not an insensitive man, quite the opposite. He truly understands the role that humor plays in coping with loss. There is nothing we can do to bring a loved one back, and wallowing in loss serves only to take our energy away from those that are still with us.

On the same topic, Gervais shared a story about a companion of his (a Doctor) who works at a hospital. This Doctor revealed that medical staff would occasionally play pranks on interns. When a patient dies, the senior Doctors would call in an intern to run basic diagnosis, without telling the intern that the patient is dead. When the intern realizes that the patient isn’t breathing, the Doctors would say:

“What the hell did you do? He was alive a moment ago!”

They would effectively pretend that the intern was responsible for the death, and soon after revealing to the intern that it was a joke. This was never to disrespect the patient, but to allow them to cope with daily loss of lives and re-focus their energy on helping patients who are still alive.

In Tragedy

In 2009, hundreds of families lost their homes to flames in bush-fires in Australia. While following this story closely, I ran into two photos that I wanted to share with you:




These people had just lost their homes to a fire. Thankfully, their families survived. Looking at these photos, do you think you would have the strength to focus on what you still have rather than what you lost? Would you be able to smile while sifting through the ashes where your home once stood? I found these photos inspiring, and I know that I would personally find it difficult to be so strong after such a recent tragedy.



Shit happens, have a giggle.

Not only is a sense of humor required for an enjoyable existence, life itself is nuanced with what seem like an ongoing series of tasteless practical jokes.

There are numerous examples of this. The stream of consciousness that follows reflects only some of the absurdities that plague my mind on a daily basis.

The food that appeals most to our taste makes us unhealthy. The flow of money is typically in the hands of those that need it the least. People respect us most when we are withholding. Nice guys finish last. We spend the sunniest part of our day stuck in offices, and the darkness with our family and friends.

Ignorance is bliss, and intelligence is stress. We idolize celebrities, while brilliant minds enjoy only a brief yawn-worthy mention in our science classes.

We save and retire when we no longer have the energy to truly enjoy it. No matter how hard we work, we go unpaid for four months of every year to pay off our government representatives, while they squander it like a spoiled child. Our heart skips a beat when we see the vehicles of uniformed officers that are more likely to intimidate than to protect us.

Life is a joke, and oftentimes a tasteless one. These things will not change, not in my lifetime or yours. You better pack a sense of humor before you go on this ride.

When you look at the Western Civilization as a collective, our lives are not dissimilar. Most of us work in jobs that we never wanted, with people we wouldn’t otherwise spend our day with. The majority live modestly, with homes we can barely afford and neighbors we can live without.

We will see our friends and family pass on with age, that is, if we don’t die first. Our circumstances are typically the same, but the enjoyment we derive from life comes down to our perspective. You can either be miserable, or have some fun along the way.

I have found that no other quality is as effective for coping as a sense of humor. If you have it, relish in it. If you don’t have it, you better look deep and find it.

If somehow you came to the conclusion that you need to be dead-serious to be a respected adult, then I hope you will soon wake from your disillusionment. Our time on Earth is limited, so try to enjoy it as much as possible. Once the game is over, it’s too late for a Bon Jovi joke