Summary: Force yourself to laugh and you will soon be laughing.
Have you ever seen Monty Python’s “And Now for Something
Completely Different?”
This collection of their most memorable skits includes one about
the world’s funniest joke.
We are looking over a disheveled man’s shoulder. He is hunched
over a desk scribbling on a piece of paper. On the floor of his
ill-kept bedroom are piles of crumpled paper, his discarded
joke-writing attempts.
The voice-over tells us that the man, Ernest Scribbler, is about
to write the world’s funniest joke.
The writer (Michael Palin) writes the joke, giggles, and starts
laughing hysterically. Clutching the paper, he falls over dead.
His mother (Eric Idle) enters the room and is horrified at her
son’s lifeless body. She snatches the paper from his hand,
thinking it is a suicide note.
She reads it, laughs, laughs harder, then laughs even harder,
and falls over dead.
The joke (of course, we never see it) is turned into a secret
weapon in World War II. It is translated into German by
isolated teams of translators working one word at a time.
Then we see German soldiers reading leaflets dropped by the
British, breaking into laughter, and keeling over.
Imagine how much fun they had shooting this bit of dark humor!
Imagine watching a bunch of cut-ups pretending to read a piece
of paper, laughing, and falling over.
Can you imagine if someone got the giggles? I’ve love to see
the outtakes!
That’s because when you engage the physical laughter mechanism,
you really do start laughing.
You don’t need a reason. When the hard wiring is activated, the
body laughs. No joke required.
Force yourself to laugh. It’s silly, but you will really start
laughing.
It will change your state of mind.
And you will experience something completely different.
Copyright 2004 by Tony Papajohn. Tony
writes and speaks on success. Subscribe to his free
SuccessMotivator e-zine at http://www.successmotivator.com.
About the Author
Tony Papajohn speaks and writes on success. He specializes in teaching how to use the brain to tap the power of the mind. He has written and taught courses on Ericksonian hypnosis, NLP, and C.G. Jung. Tony publishes his thoughts and findings in his free SuccessMotivator newsletter. His hundreds of short articles cover a wide range of subjects and illustrate the principles of success and successful living.