Humour- The lighter side of life

It’s part of the virtue transcendence.

Definition; it’s about liking to laugh, bringing smiles to other people. About seeing the light side, making jokes, not necessarily telling jokes.

The essence is offering pleasure, laughter to others.

The dimensions; it’s about playfulness.

Some questions you can ask yourself to use humour more; What situations promote your sense of humour?
What strengths do you use to be sensitive to the context, to express humour at the right time?
How do you initiate playfulness with others? And how do others initiate it with you?

Some interventions that you can use.
Each day for the next seven days, write down the three funniest things that you experienced or did, and explain why these things happen? How did it all come about?
Cultivate a playful attitude and sense of fun. Consider situations when you’re serious? Where you’re playful? And try to spend more time here.
Reflect on the benefits of adopting a playful outlook on life.
Spend time playing with young children, do at least one fun thing every day. Remind yourself to be playful.

The golden mean: In the middle between overly serious on one side, and the other extreme is giddiness, where they’re just finding everything funny, and nothing’s funny.

It correlates with these five areas: Social intelligence, Zest, Kindness, Hope and Love.

Actions that you can use to incorporate humour more often:
Find the fun and the lighter side in most situations, strike a balance between taking things seriously enough, and not taking them too seriously.
Learn a new joke three times a week tell them to friends. Note how laughing improves the mood of the group.
Be friends with someone who has a great sense of humour, watch how they use this strength to deal with bad news, with difficult decisions.
Go out with friends at least once a month, bowling, hiking, biking etc, and note how group the group dynamic improves when you laugh together.
Number five, send funny emails to friends rather than forwarding those boring chain letters. Does anyone still do that?
Share humour from your own life.

Some information:
Humour is connected with a number of health benefits.
It’s one of the strengths most connected with pleasure and positive emotion.
It’s one of the five strengths most associated with life satisfaction and happiness.