A little lightheartedness never really hurt anyone
I have a few distant relatives who just can’t take a joke. So sensitive are they that if you crack a joke at their expense, they’ll hold a grudge for a month.
There are way too many people out there like this. Some people are so accustomed to their own sulkiness that any kind of humor is an abomination to them.
Make jokes, poke fun or clown around anywhere near them and they get grumpy. And then there are some who are grumps every hour of every day, for no apparent reason.
What the heck is the matter? Why do we have so many perpetual grouches out there?
I’d like to know exactly what the world did to them that was so terrible as to plant permanent frowns on their faces and bad humor in their hearts.
In all the movies I’ve seen, all it takes is something like a singing cricket (“Pinocchio”) or a singing nanny (“Mary Poppins”) or a goofy goggle-eyed proto-weasel (“Ice Age”) to lighten the mood and make even the grumpiest characters crack a smile.
But I guess we’ll need a singing miracle to make that happen out here in the real world.
Everywhere I go I see people with frowns on their faces, brows lowered, eyes glaring, shoulders drooping and lips pouting.
There’s one particular female undergraduate student here at NDSU who I pass every day on the way to my communication law class.
She’s very pretty, and by that I mean she could charm a man-eating tiger into vegetarianism if she smiled.
But she never smiles. She’s eternally morose. Every time I pass her I give her a quick once-over to see what kind of mood she’s in, and it’s always bad.
Her eyes are like a basset hound’s. The sides of her mouth always curve down, never up. She walks along with her eyes on the ground in front of her and her arms folded up, like the world is making her cold. It saddens me just to see it. She always looks as if she’s just received the news that her cat died.
I’ve thought about stopping and telling her that her face will stick like that if she keeps the same expression on it all the time, but I have a feeling that would be just plain weird.
Seriously, there’s something wrong if you walk around all day with your fists clenched, or your eyes downcast and with a saddened expression. You’ve got to let a little sunshine into your life.
When I get depressed, it never lasts too long, because I’m able to see humor in basically anything, and something always happens that makes me giggle to myself.
The people around me can’t figure out why I’m giggling and that makes me giggle more. Gradually I get back my usual completely-out-of-my-tiny-little-mind self.
If you’ve got a permanent case of the Mondays, you should re-examine your life and try to lighten up a little. If school’s getting you down, remember: it isn’t permanent.
If your job is cramping your style, remember: this is just a temporary phase before you get your dream job.
If your significant other is weighing heavily on your soul, think on this: there are lots more fish in the sea.
Just keep in mind the good that a little humor and an optimistic outlook can change a really horrible day into one that’s looking up.
Sure, there are bad days as well as good, and probably a lot more bad days than good ones, but for goodness sake, don’t be a grouch. It’s contagious.
But then again, so is laughter.
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum