Friday, February 01, 2008

Tell me a joke, quick!

"To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury; to study hard, to think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common, this is to be my symphony." --William Henry Channing

I'm working on that "to bear all cheerfully" the past week or so.

;-)

Common, ordinary, everyday sorts of troubles, but finding the way through without giving in to the urge to be unnecessarily cranky is something of a challenge. Mostly, I feel like sticking my head in the oven!

;-)

I think I find meaning in this quote today because it speaks to personal choice and responsibility for one's own happiness. A challenge for many of us, yet so simple for some others of us.

Little by little I'm learning enough about myself to keep my emotions mostly even and I find that little things, even big things, no longer hold the same power over me that they might have at one time. Sometimes I don't do so well with that, though! It takes practice, I think, for me to feel relaxed and flexible enough mentally to 'go with the flow' when the universe seems to have other plans for me. Laughter is my way around that crankiness... and lots of ice-cream.

Anybody know a good joke or two.. to cheer me?

10 comments:

nina at Nature Remains. said...

Sorry, Laura, I'm horrible with jokes.
But how about imagining that photo is a WARM, sunny beach. I can almost feel the sand between my toes and feel the warmth on my face.
Oooo.

Hoping you find happy thoughts to keep your balance.

Susan Gets Native said...

"Two birders walk into a bar...."

Anonymous said...

These two guys are walking along a public beach. One of them looks up at a low-flying gull and wouldn't you know it - the bird drops a load in his eye. So he's wiping and wiping at his eye, and his buddy goes, "Hold on! There's a restroom up ahead. I'll go get some toilet paper." And the first guy goes, "Ah, don't bother. That gull's probably miles away by now!"

bobbie said...

Well, I couldn't top Dave's joke if I tried.
Today it "tomorrow" since you wrote this. And tomorrows often do help. I hope that's the case for you.
What you said about things no longer holding the same power made me stop and think. No, they don't, and that is a very good part of growing older, and hopefully a little wiser.

Anonymous said...

I know the feeling... I was very cranky yesterday and everything I tried to do took twice as long and/or failed for some reason. Is that why I was cranky, or did my crankiness affect my work flow?

Maybe this will make you chuckle. It's a bumper sticker in very poor taste... still, when I saw it, I couldn't supress a guffaw:

"Monica Lewinski's X-boyfriend's wife for president."

(Please do not make any assumptions about my political leanings based on this post! It just made me giggle, that's all!)

entoto said...

Oh wow! I stink at jokes. All I can offer is tea and empathy. I think we have had similar weeks.

KGMom said...

Laura--how about a whole website filled with pun jokes?
These are my favorite kind of jokes. Tells you something about me, doesn't it.

Mary said...

Can't think of a single joke right now. I need some jokes, too :o/

I so understand everything you said. Hang in and keep looking forward. Spring forward.

RG said...

Well, these two rabbits walk into a bar .... the bartender says we don't serve rabbits here. We want martinis they say.

I guess you just chip away at some of those old habits a little bit at a time. It helps a lot to stop and think of how far you've come.

Rurality said...

This is the only joke I can ever remember.

Where did Hitler keep his armies?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Up his sleevies!

:)