Funny

Erika Petrelli
Erika Petrelli
Ghost Story

Sometimes life is not funny.  Not. Funny.

Disappointments at work are not funny. Deep-seated issues and misunderstandings and hurt feelings are not funny. Money stressors are most definitely not funny.

Health problems or injuries preventing you from doing something you’ve wanted to do or have always done… not funny.

Life, the kind with a capital L, is not funny; without warning it can take you out at the knees.

So, when Life (capital L) sits next to me, crossing his haughty Life arms and looking at me sideways, waiting for me to crumble under the power of his awesome not-funniness, I try to shift my focus to life, with a little l.

Cuz life, with a little l, is fu-u-u-nny. Funny, funny, funny.

The other day I saw a card that said, “I used to live each day as if it was my last, but people got tired of me screaming, ‘I’m going to die!! I’m going to die!!’” Funny.

Kids are funny. Yesterday my four year old daughter, in response to her cousin who had just ratted her out for being “mean,” calmly replied: “That’s not possible. I’m never mean.” Funny.

I saw a trailer for an aboslutley ridiculous-looking movie coming out soon that had me giggling for hours after every time I thought about it.   Funny.

Whether it’s a TV show or a comedian or a book or a friend or a memory or a Facebook post or something you witness at the grocery store, funny stuff happens all the time.   life is funny, even when Life is not.

Even the word “funny” is funny.

I think that when Life (capital L) comes knocking on your door, it helps to turn your attention to life (little l). Finding the humor in the little things takes your attention away from the NOT FUNNY things, and as the saying goes: “where your attention goes, the energy flows.” You give power to what you pay attention to –  you can dwell on Life, or you can enjoy life.   Just like I talked about in last week’s blog on Happiness, life can be full of misery or it can be full of funny.  I’ll take funny.

So, look at your life (not your Life).   What’s funny?

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Erika Petrelli

By Erika Petrelli

Erika Petrelli is the Senior Vice President of Leadership Development (and self-declared Minister of Mischief) for The Leadership Program, a New York City-based organization. With a Masters degree in Secondary Education, Erika has been in the field of teaching and training for decades, and has been with The Leadership Program since 1999. There she has the opportunity to nurture the individual leadership spirit in both students and adults across the country, through training, coaching, keynotes, and writing. The legacy Erika strives daily to create is to be the runway upon which others take flight. If you enjoy these blogs, you should check out her interactive journal, On Wings & Whimsy: Finding the Extraordinary Within the Ordinary, now available for sale on Amazon. While her work takes her all around the country, Erika calls Indiana home.