Feeling Trapped? Let Humor Set You Free
When I had COVID, I had no desire to do anything. Even standing to get a drink of water felt like something I needed to put on my daily to-do list… but putting something on my to-do list was too much work. As I started to feel better, I made videos poking fun at my condition. Not because I wanted to beat down on myself, but because when I feel shitty, sorry for myself, or angry about something, I pick it apart in an attempt to make myself laugh. It’s this laughter that shakes me free, and allows me to realize that there’s another way to look at my circumstances.
When I was going through the thick of the COVID symptoms, nothing could make me laugh — my brain was in such a fog of survival, all there was was the sickness. But the moment that fog broke, just a little, I could see a world outside of my predicament. I’m a comedian. That may be my job title, but more than that, it’s who I am as a person — if I’m not making other people laugh, I feel as trapped as I felt with COVID.
The truth is that most people feel trapped in some sort of fog, whether it’s in their job, relationship, neighborhood, societal status quo, or even in their own bodies. Though I got better, many people are still trapped in their predicaments, and sadly, many will die never truly experiencing freedom, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Wake up, go to work, get yelled at, come home, get yelled at, make dinner, watch TV, go to bed, repeat — that a very two-dimensional way to live in a 3D world.
Getting sick was the disruption I needed to re-discover that 3D reality. You couldn’t have told me that with a straight face when I was sick, but in hindsight, the moment I was able to laugh about my predicament was the moment I was able to see beyond it. This is the power of humor. Even though it may not be your job to find things that are funny in order to make people laugh, being able to discover a break in the fog and see the blue sky is, at its core, what humor is. Simply knowing that there is a break in the fog, then using it as a tool is the same as knowing there is something funny within adversity, and using it as a tool. Most people focus on the fog or the adversity and completely miss it. Stop. Start looking for the break and do something with it when you find it.
