What should you do when something bad happens?
My advice:  Smile, laugh or make a joke.

Crying is also an option but once you are done; I strongly recommend that you smile, laugh and/or make a joke.

We all have bad days; we all feel like the planets occasionally line up just to cast a shadow down upon us.

How we handle these moments is essential to how we survive and thrive beyond them!

As all of my readers know, I believe in humor.  I believe that humor is; "where grim reality meets total awareness and is beneficially twisted by the mind."  To laugh at something complex is a huge accomplishment and an even greater gift!
 
When learning a new language or a new culture, humor is the last thing we conquer.  Why?  Because it is so complex!  To perceive humor you must receive, process and comprehend information.  To convey humor is to share and teach these qualities to others!

I am NOT talking about laughing when a father gets hit in the groin by a whiffle-ball bat on America’s Funniest Home Video’s.  Although, even in this situation, the humor comes from the awareness and understanding of how much it hurts to get hit in the groin.

Slapstick humor or laughing when someone gets hurt (emotionally or physically) is NEVER appropriate!  Why?  Because it personalizes the laughter and creates a victim; you are laughing AT someone.

When your total awareness to a situation beneficially twists things into a positive and humorous perspective sharing it is a humanitarian service that is the emotional equivalent to an emergency relief drop of food supplies into a starving community.  It becomes an obligation!

Here are two examples: (one personal and one professional)

    * Whenever someone tells me they are going through a difficult divorce I react this way; "Congratulations!"

I’ve been there and done that! I know how painful it is!  Here is the "beneficial twist" to the occasion.  The old saying; "the hardest thing is to admit that you have a problem" is appropriate. Divorce is Hell!  Why remind them of the Hell they will face?  Instead, encourage them for the bravery of making (or accepting) a difficult decision.  The "beneficial twist" is to congratulate them to blaze forward!

    * Once I was in a meeting to evaluate a Sports Medicine program.  We put Athletic Trainers on the field during sporting events to treat injuries but they never showed up in our clinics. How could we track the impact of our program? Where were they going? How could we find out?  I suggested; "we should tag them (the injured athlete) on the ear like they do on Animal Planet."

Everyone cracked up!  My boss scowled at me (even lectured me later).  But what happened?  What was the "beneficial twist"?  I used humor from a shared experience to simply convey a complex message in another context.
 
We ended up doing exactly what I suggested.  No, not tracking device tags on the ear; we put a florescent bracelet on their wrist with the direct phone number to the therapists (no switchboards) at our nearest clinic; we offered the "two minute drill" promise.  If they walked (or hobbled) into one of our clinics and flashed their bracelet they would be seen within two minutes no questions asked and people started coming into our clinics.

When bad things happen to good people they find AND SHARE the positive "beneficial twist" of humor.
 
Lon Kieffer, author of "Get Out of Bed and Go to Work!", Speaker, Consultant and expert on Workplace Culture Change and Generational Conflicts, gives seminars, keynote and plenary addresses, runs annual sales meetings, and provides Common Sense Consulting at:  www.LonKieffer.com. He can be reached at (302) 462-6748 or via e-mail to Lon@LonKieffer.com