Do you find it funny?

Mullah Nasrudin went to see his doctor about his leg which has been hurting for a few days;
"That pain in your leg is caused by old age," the doctor told Mullah Nasrudin.
"That can't be," replied the Mullah. "The other leg is the same age and doesn't hurt a bit."

Do you find it funny?
May be?
What about this one?

Mullah Nasrudin's donkey got lost. After much looking around someone told him that he saw Mullah’s donkey enter the village Mosque. Mullah rushed to the Mosque to get his donkey back. He was shocked to see Molvi - the long bearded Mosque warden – madly kicking and punching Mullah’s beloved donkey for entering his Mosque.

“You are beating him just for entering your Mosque,” asked Mullah in an angry tone, “he is only a donkey, let him go, have I ever made such a mistake?”

I got another one for you.

Mullah used to cross the border between Pakistan and Iran with his donkey carrying a sack of hay. Guard at the border check post always suspected that something fishy was going on and Mullah was smuggling something. Every time Mullah crossed the border with his donkey carrying a sack of hay, the guard will stop him and thoroughly him. To his dismay, the guard never found anything in the sack. It was always filled with hey…just hay and nothing else. Many years passed and once guard saw Mullah sitting in his favorite café enjoying his favorite green chai. Guard walked up to Mullah and told that now he had retired from his security job and was living a private life. But his biggest regret was not being able to figure out what Mullah was smuggling.
"Now that I can’t do anything against you," he begged Mullah in a meek tone, "I’ll be indebted to you if you could tell what were you smuggling?"
Sipping on his green chai, in a relaxed tone, Mullah replied;
“Donkeys”.

If there is a smile on your face now, read on.

Humor is the ability to appreciate and express what makes people laugh. Only very smart people are capable of finding humor in what they do and what happens in the world around them. Laughter is a step toward enlightenment. People that are full of themselves, the ones with big ego, and the self-righteousness types always lack sense of humor. I’m sure you have seen them around. There certainly is no shortage of them. These types are too busy worshiping themselves and finding faults with others that there is no way they can ever make fun of themselves and appreciate the humor happening around all the time.

People who breeze through life with peace, confidence and amusement are the people who are able to see blue sky behind every cloud. They know there is a light at the end of every tunnel and there is a day after every night. It’s their focus on the positive that makes them enjoy life even during seemingly not so sunny times. These people don’t need to watch a sitcom to laugh; they can find amusement in themselves and in situations and people around them everyday. They don’t need to get into lighter mood; their default mood is the lighter one. There could be situations that could drag them out of their default mood momentarily, but they always go back to their default mood. There is a sort of gravitational pull that does not let me stray too far from their default mood for too long.

Funny or amusing is not a particular event around you. It is how you look at what happens around you. It is how you see yourself and the people around you. Just imagine how beautiful life could be if you were able to relate to people around you in an amused state; if your default mood is a lighter and amused one; if you are able to find amusement in your daily activities.

The opposite side of being funny and amusing is being irritated and frustrated. In life, things happen. Now it’s your choice to get irritated, frustrated and angry and ruin your day over something innocuous, or you could make fun of it and laugh it off and thank God for the opportunity to learn from it and practice your funny side. Instead of being annoyed by the weird and absurd characters around you, learn to enjoy them. In the sitcom Seinfeld, when George and Kramer are at their weirdest, Seinfeld would always have a smile on his face. He enjoyed it. Learn to enjoy the Georges and Kramers in your life.

Look at babies if you really want to understand what being amused really look like. Babies don’t need something “funny” to happen to be amused. They are amused by default. Amusement is their default state. As we grow older, something happens along the way and we get conditioned by the society that forces us to start seeing the world through totally different lenses. This new world, as it seems through these new lenses, is marked by misery, scarcity, greed and mean people. To be funny and amusing, you don’t really need to learn anything new; you just need to unlearn few things. You need to deprogram yourself and get rid of al the viruses that have infected your brain’s computer. Humor is the best anti-virus program that nature has created.

Once you arrive at your default mood, you will discover a world filled with all sorts of amusing and funny people and things. You will see positive changes as a ripple effect of this approach in all your relationships, family and work. The positive energy this new approach creates will make your life a lot more fun!