Laugh a Little

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According to a study, children laugh around 300-400 times a day, while an average adult laughs around 20 times a day. How sad is that! So, is it really surprising that most of us want to be a child again? Most children live their life unabashedly. They laugh out loud. They shout when they want to. They play when they feel like it and sleep when they want to. I know a lot of you will start saying, "But we have to earn and do the stuff that we as "adults" are supposed to. There's a term used by Gen Z for this, by the way, if you didn't know. It is called "adulting". I happened to learn it a few days ago. It basically means doing something more "responsible" like what an adult would normally do. For a better understanding of the term, kindly Google it.

Yes, we need to be adults and do what adults are supposed to. But unlike what we have started adopting in our lifestyle these days, adults have a right to laugh as well. It is not exclusively for the children. The rise in the number of people watching stand-up comedy and people leaving their jobs to do it, shows that people crave happiness and want to laugh. We think that something is keeping us from becoming our happy selves and that's true. "We" are stopping us from being free and happy. We are putting undue pressure on ourselves to be something that we are most definitely not.

Laughter has endless benefits, and in spite of knowing that, we keep our demeanor serious as often as we can. The saddest part is that we give this ugly piece of ourselves to our loved ones too. They become the target of our frustrations and insecurities. Even though we know that they are not responsible for it in any way, we take it out on them. But what we should actually be doing is, give love and respect to them. They deserve the best of you, even if nobody else should. Then again, why stop there? If the world is a mirror, isn't it smart for us to throw our best selves at it so that we get the best too?

So, what is it that's stopping us from living our best life? Why did we stop laughing and smiling? Why did we start taking life so seriously? The entertainment industry is booming because we just want to get away from our reality, even if it is for a few hours. Is life that bad? What is it that is causing this restlessness and unhappiness in us? We know that we are going to live only once. But are we actually living? None of us knows when we are going to die. However, all of us know that we are going to die. So why not try to live our life for a change? Why not give life a chance and truly, completely live it? 

Ponder over these questions for a minute.

What we saw during the pandemic is devastating. Many of us have lost our loved ones and what's worse, we couldn't even hug them for the last time. The times are tough. Let's not make it even tougher. Spend time with your loved ones. Laugh with them. Laugh till your belly hurts. Laugh till you cry. Laugh till you feel that burden gets off your chest!