thinkfetti

In the the book I’m reading now by Lin Yutang, I see that a sense of humor is a necessary counterbalance to a sense of idealism.

In my working environment – and those of many other people, I’d imagine – it’s all too easy for the wrong kind of humor to develop, though: a cynical, black-ish kind of humor, maybe even graveyard humor. I find Dilbert funny, but I’m sad that I do. In practice, this cynical humor goes beyond counterbalancing idealism, producing demoralized apathy.

Throwing up my hands doesn’t make it easier, for me personally, to go to work. But in the face of problems, I look for a way to navigate between taking them “too seriously” on the one side and cynically giving up trying on the other. An ability to change my focal length can help, and a sense of humor – a forgiving, compassionate-without-being-too-serious-about-being-compassionate sense of humor – is quite possibly an important piece of the internal compass I’ll need to draw on more often.