Monday Moods: Kindness and Humor

Reading blogs and comments this last week, someone (I can't find who for sure) mentioned a lack of kindness and humor in the world.  In many ways I feel this.  

I often write about tiny acts of kindness, being nice to one another. Go out today and do something kind.  Send a note to a friend that is struggling, open a door for someone whose hands are full, let the other person go first. Tiny acts of kindness add up. Leave a kind comment on someone's blog, or at least refrain from saying something negative.   

I find myself being touchy about things people say, likely in an attempt at humor, that I take offense at.  

I miss the Comics page in newspapers.  A full page in black ink, six days a week, about half of which were funny, multiple pages in color on Sunday.  Back when we read print newspapers.  A media that has all but gone away.  I read the Far Side daily (linked in my daily reads.) I miss Hagar, Andy, Snoopy, and the Family Circus. When I was in Orlando the daily cartoon on the editorial page was written by Jake Vest, 'That's Jake" always found humor in the weirdness in daily life.  

Back in my legal aid days, I would create and present an hour long ethics presentation every year for an annual conference. One year I illustrated the entire hour with cartoons I had collected over the years.  I remember one, two women standing next to a coffin, one says to the other, "can I tell you a secret, life insurance is easier to collect than child support." This illustrated the point that lawyers hear things from clients that they must hold in strictest confidence. Sure enough someone was offended, saying this promoted homicide. 

A brilliant therapist once told a dear one, "if you can't remember the last time you laughed, it has been too long." 

This week, let's commit to an act of kindness and to find something, anything to laugh about.