FAIR's Rising Generation

The strange quote above comes from Proverbs 17:22 in the Bible. Let’s translate it out. “A merry heart” is laughter. “Doeth good like a medicine” is that it is good for you. Laughing is good for you. Yeah, that comes from the Bible.

But laughter’s not a joking matter (note the pun). Those who’ve studied it seriously have found out laughter actually is medicine. As one university professor stated:

Studies show that humor and laughter help people live longer, happier lives; be more creative and productive; and have more energy with less physical discomfort. Humor reduces stress, fear, intimidation, embarrassment, and anger. Laughter also has extraordinary healing power. When a person laughs, blood pressure decreases, heart rate and respiration increase, the body releases endorphins, and depression declines. After the laughter subsides and you relax again, that good feeling has a lasting effect, even until the next day. Not many medicines will do that.[1]

Usually when I think of medicine, I have faint haunting memories from when I was six or seven. I don’t know why, but for some reason I needed a spoonful of this horribly nasty liquid that vainly tried to mask its horrid taste with cherry flavor. I remember my siblings tackling me, pinning down my arms while I kicked and struggled to be free while my mother came at me with the bottle and spoon like an executioner with bringing the block and axe. If I wasn’t thinking that at the time, its definitely how I felt.

Yet from what the quote above said, that disgusting medicine is still helping me. Why? Because now I laugh when I remember what I then thought was torture of the cruelest form.

Orson Scott Card recently observed the strange priority that laughter, or rather humor, takes for desirable qualities in marriage:

I was starting a lesson on marriage for the priests quorum in my ward, and I asked them, “What do you think is important when you’re looking for a wife?” They sat in stony silence for a while. I think they suspected a trap. Finally one of them said, “Well, it helps if she’s good-looking.” Come on, they’re teenage boys. I didn’t even argue. “What else?” The very next suggestion was: “Sense of humor.” I looked around at them and nodded. “Yeah, I guess she’d better have that.”[2]

Card goes on to say that having a good sense of humor doesn’t mean to be funny, “or comedians would be the first people to get married.” It means that if your are in a situation where you could get angry, embarrassed, insulted, or enraged, laugh instead.

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin put it this way. “Have you ever seen an angry driver who, when someone else makes a mistake, reacts as though that person has insulted his honor, his family, his dog, and his ancestors all the way back to Adam? Or have you had an encounter with an overhanging cupboard door left open at the wrong place and the wrong time which has been cursed, condemned, and avenged by a sore-headed victim? There is an antidote for times such as these: learn to laugh.”[3]

While we can’t control everything that happens to us, we can control how we react. If we choose to laugh, we’ll find life more enjoyable, be healthier, and be more attractive to others. And even the Bible says so.

—footnotes—
[1] Gary K. Palmer, “The Power of Laughter,” Ensign, Sep 2007, 32–35
[2] Orson Scott Card, “Marriage Needs Lots of Humor,” Mormon Times, Jun 18 2009, http://mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=9241
[3] Joseph B. Wirthlin, “Come What May, and Love It,” Liahona, Nov 2008, 26–28

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