Stop Global Whining with Loretta LaRoche You Have Less Time Than You Think,
So Enjoy It!
By: John Shepler
Loretta LaRoche is on a campaign to save us from ourselves.
Apparently what you've heard is true. Society is really decaying,
everything is worse than it's ever been, the world is certainly
spinning down to an ignominious end, and, what's more, you may
have only a few minutes left!
No wonder we sit terrified in front of the evening
news, eye every stranger with suspicion, expect asteroids to
fall on us, and drive like wild people. It's everybody for themselves.
You can't even get them to listen. As soon as you try to warn
people that their double burger with cheese may have it's heritage
in some insane bovine, they brush you aside. Their job is miserable,
their kids hate them, their bodies are riddled with biological
time bombs from second hand smoke to excess sun over the last
40 years. It's just awful...and they may have only a few minutes
left. So, get out of the way!
Is stress getting to be just a little too important in our
lives? Do we revel in our misery perhaps just a little too much?
Have we twisted things around now so that unless we're really
suffering we don't feel important? Worse, have we backed ourselves
into such a corner that we'll never get away from all this stress...at
least not alive? Or, is there some faint glimmer of hope? Loretta
LaRoche will laugh in your face and tell you it's all up to you.
We really do inflict a lot of our own misery. It's gotten
so bad now that we need humor consultants to reconnect us with
what we knew instinctively as children. Loretta points out that
we experienced 400 good laughs every day at age 4. As adults
that's down to 15. Her company, the Humor Potential, provides
seminars to companies and other organizations to help us regain
that ability to energize ourselves with laughter.
You might recognize the name Loretta LaRoche, and you'll certainly
recognize her on sight. She is the only woman on PBS wearing
a Viking helmet. It's either the helmet or the Groucho Marx glasses
that she wears in traffic. Why? It seems that other drivers are
happy to let her pull in when they notice the Groucho getup.
The Viking helmet would probably only work in a convertible,
but on that convertible would be her bumper sticker that says:
"Stop Global Whining."
Loretta
takes a different view toward stress than most of us. We wrestle
with it, hide from it, fear it, and feel we're not important
enough if it isn't weighing us down. Her approach is to "Humor
Your Stress." That's one of her videos. Others are called
"The Joy of Stress" and "How Serious is This?"
You think this is funny. Good! Negative stress is literally
killing us. A good laugh will reduce blood pressure, improve
digestion and release endorphins and other natural pain-relieving
hormones through your system. This has been reported in health
magazines and is why it's always been said that "laughter
is the best medicine." Loretta notes that "optimists
live longer. Pessimists are accurate, but they don't live as
long."
So what are we going to do about it? Well, we can continue
our awfulizing and catastrophizing and keep the content of our
daily conversations at the 75% negative level. Or, we can lighten
up a bit. If the daily grind is just, well, a grind, then we
need to find some funny stuff. Barbara found this web site called
the "Barking Spider" published by Phillip Winn. He
asks some interesting questions such as:
Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds? Does fuzzy logic
tickle? Is there another word for synonym? If a parsley farmer
is sued, can they garnish his wages?
Phillip also has a collection of useless inventions. How about
a battery powered battery charger? Dehydrated water? Flashbulb
tester? Leather cutlery? Reversible garbage disposal? Sugar coated
insulin? Waterproof sponge?
Humor does not have to be mean spirited or at the expense
of insulting a particular group. Some of the best laughs are
just silly stuff that we can all get a kick out of. Even better
are the little things that people can do to brighten each other's
day. Like the manager who stapled a candy bar to the middle of
a report he wanted his secretary to type. It had a note: "to
give you energy to keep going!" That's one of the stories
from another humor consultant, Sister Mary Christelle Macaluso.
That's right, Sister Mary. She's known as the "Fun Nun."
Her philosophy is that "humor is to life what shock absorbers
are to a car. It can lesson tension; it's just a wonderful healing
thing." She takes her inspiration from a line in Proverbs;
"A joyful heart is the health of the body, but a depressed
spirit dries up the bones." (17:22)
Well, what are we waiting for? Have we been "saving the
good stuff for the right occasion" or waiting until things
improve before we dare feel better? Perhaps right now is the
best time to just up and laugh out loud. If you're near enough
to hear, I'd even like to join in, if that's OK. :-O (LOL)
I'll leave you with a quote from Loretta LaRoche that puts
life in perspective:
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift...that's why they call it the present.
This week, don't just have a good laugh...have a great one!
Books of Interest:
Relax - You May Only Have a Few Minutes Left by Loretta
LaRoche. Imagine a cross between Erma Bombeck and Jon Kabat-Zinn.
The result is Loretta LaRoche, star of the lecture circuit and
PBS-TV. In this unique, hilarious, and practical book, LaRoche
helps readers lighten up at work and at home, and, as she says,
"find the bless in the mess".
The Humor Gap - Men and women may have different roles when it comes to comedy, but laughter is crucial from flirtation through long-term commitment. Courtesy of Scientific American.
No wonder we sit terrified in front of the evening
news, eye every stranger with suspicion, expect asteroids to
fall on us, and drive like wild people. It's everybody for themselves.
You can't even get them to listen. As soon as you try to warn
people that their double burger with cheese may have it's heritage
in some insane bovine, they brush you aside. Their job is miserable,
their kids hate them, their bodies are riddled with biological
time bombs from second hand smoke to excess sun over the last
40 years. It's just awful...and they may have only a few minutes
left. So, get out of the way!
So what are we going to do about it? Well, we can continue
our awfulizing and catastrophizing and keep the content of our
daily conversations at the 75% negative level. Or, we can lighten
up a bit. If the daily grind is just, well, a grind, then we
need to find some funny stuff. Barbara found this web site called
the "Barking Spider" published by Phillip Winn. He
asks some interesting questions such as: