Ray’ Daily
July 21, 2017
www.rays-daily.com
If you’re too busy to laugh, you are too busy.
Proverb
A friend told me the other day that he knew someone who had given up on life. His acquaintance said that he was ready to die. He focused on his aches and pains as well as the things he did not like about his world. The sad part was the man was in his early sixties and has many good years ahead if he chooses to do something about his bleak view of his existance.
I later thought about how Norman Cousins years ago was told his life would soon be over and decided he was not ready to go. Below you will see how the cure he chose for himself allowed him to live for twenty more years.
Laughter is The Best Medicine
Many years ago, Norman Cousins was diagnosed as “terminally ill”. He was given six months to live. His chance for recovery was 1 in 500. He could see the worry, depression and anger in his life contributed to, and perhaps helped cause, his disease. He wondered, “If illness can be caused by negativity, can wellness be created by positivity?”
He decided to make an experiment of himself. Laughter was one of the most positive activities he knew. He rented all the funny movies he could find – Keaton, Chaplin, Fields, the Marx Brothers. (This was before VCRs, so he had to rent the actual films.) He read funny stories. He asked his friends to call him whenever they said, heard or did something funny. His pain was so great he could not sleep. Laughing for 10 solid minutes, he found, relieved the pain for several hours so he could sleep.
He fully recovered from his illness and lived another 20 happy, healthy and productive years. (His journey is detailed in his book, Anatomy of an Illness.) He credits visualization, the love of his family and friends, and laughter for his recovery. Some people think laughter is a waste of time. It is a luxury, they say, a frivolity, something to indulge in only every so often. Nothing could be further from the truth. Laughter is essential to our equilibrium, to our well-being, to our aliveness. If we’re not well, laughter helps us get well; if we are well, laughter helps us stay that way.
Since Cousins’ ground-breaking subjective work, scientific studies have shown that laughter has a curative effect on the body, the mind and the emotions. So, if you like laughter, consider it sound medical advice to indulge in it as often as you can. If you don’t like laughter, then take your medicine – laugh anyway.
Use whatever makes you laugh – movies, sitcoms, Monty Python, records, books, New Yorker cartoons, jokes, friends. Give yourself permission to laugh – long and loud and out loud – whenever anything strikes you as funny. The people around you may think you’re strange, but sooner or later they’ll join in even if they don’t know what you’re laughing about.
Some diseases may be contagious, but none is as contagious as the cure. . . laughter.
By Peter McWilliams From “Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul”
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A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.
Irish Proverb
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God said, “Adam, I want you to do something for me.”
Adam said, “Gladly, Lord, what do You want me to do?”
God said, “Go down into that valley.”
Adam said, “What’s a valley?”
God explained it to him.
Then God said, “Cross the river.”
Adam said, “What’s a river?”
God explained that to him, and then said, “Go over to the hill…….”
Adam said, “What is a hill?” So, God explained to Adam what a hill was.
He told Adam, “On the other side of the hill you will find a cave”
Adam said, “What’s a cave?” After God explained, he said, “In the cave you will find a Woman.” Adam said, “What’s a woman?” So God explained that to him, too. Then, God said, “I want you to reproduce.”
Adam said, “How do I do that?” God first said (under his breath), “Aw, Man!!!” And then, just like everything else, God explained that to Adam, as well.
So, Adam goes down into the valley, across the river, and over the hill, into the cave, and finds the woman. Then, in about five minutes, he was back. God, his patience wearing thin, said angrily, “What is it now?”
And Adam said, “What’s a headache?”
~~~
A perfect parent is a person with excellent child-rearing theories and no actual children.
Dave Barry
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When the heir to the Rothschild estate visited a poor Jewish village near Budapest, the locals poured out to greet him. With all due ceremony, he was given a small parade, met with the mayor, and awarded a key to the city.
At the local inn, he ordered some roast chicken for brunch. When he finished, he received a bill larger than the most expensive bottle of wine his family sold.
“This is outrageous!” he shouted at the innkeeper. “Never in my life have I been billed so much for a roast chicken! Are chickens that rare around here?”
“Not at all,” said the innkeeper reassuringly. “But millionaires — ah, they are a rarity!”
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday. Was it worth it?
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A vacationer e-mailed a seaside hotel to ask its location. “It’s only a stone’s throw away from the beach,” he was told.
“But how will I recognize it?” asked the man.
Back came the reply: “It’s the one with all the broken windows.”
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When you don’t know what to do, walk fast and look worried. Paul Dickson
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Two teenagers were arrested. The police sergeant told them they were entitled to a phone call. Some time later a man entered the station and asked for them by name.
The sergeant said, “I suppose you’re their father……..or maybe their lawyer?”
“Nope, neither,” the chap replied. “I’m just here to deliver their hot pizza.”
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He said, “Some women are terribly hard to please – the rest are impossible!”
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A man was in bad shape. He constantly gasped for breath and his eyes bulged. The doctors didn’t give him long to live.
He decided to live it up. Withdrawing all of his money from the bank, he went on a shopping spree. His last stop was at the most expensive haberdasher in the city. He pointed out a dozen silk shirts. He wore a size fourteen.
The clerk said, “Your neck looks bigger than fourteen. You need a sixteen.”
The man said, “I know my size. I want them in a fourteen.”
The clerk said, “I’ll get them for you, but I want to warn you…if you wear a fourteen you’ll gasp all day and yours eyes will bulge.”
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“I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person.”
Audrey Hepburn
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Ray Mitchell
Indianapolis, Indiana
Management is not responsible for duplicates from previous dailies. The editor is somewhat senile.
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