Laugh

The second date ever with my wife, 11 years ago this month, was at Zanies. The headliner was painfully unfunny that night, but the opener (Hannibal Buress) rescued the night and seeing comedians remains one of our favorite date night plans.

One of the highlights of my pre-wife life was being in George Carlin’s last HBO special from New York (I’m the in the balcony, first row). I took my family, but I don’t think my parents were quite prepared for how blue George had gotten in his old age.

Last week, I went to see Bert Kreischer here in Chicago. For that 90 minutes or so, I felt no anxiety. There’s just something about a great comedian, or entertainer of any kind, that completes removes your inner dialogue and replaces it with joy.

You have to make room to laugh more. It can be in your everyday work, in a movie theater, or at once-in-a-lifetime events, but you have make room for it. Anxiety doesn’t let it in naturally.

It’s easy to see the world as pretty sick these days. It’s so much harder and more rewarding to seek out what’s funny about it.

This is part of a 30-day challenge to blog about anxiety. See all the posts.