A Trip To The Future....Laughing All The Way

A panda bear walks into a bar and orders a sandwich. The waiter brings him the sandwich. The panda bear eats it, pulls out a pistol, kills the waiter, and gets up and starts to walk out.

The bartender yells for him to stop. The panda bear asks, “What do you want?” The bartender replies, “First you come in here, order food, kill my waiter, then try to go without paying for your food.”

The panda bear turns around and says, “Hey! I’m a Panda. Look it up!” The bartender goes into the back room and looks up panda bear in the encyclopedia, which read: “Panda: a bear-like marsupial originating in Asian regions. Known largely for it’s stark black and white coloring. Eats shoots and leaves.”

I love to laugh. It is nearly impossible for me to go an entire day without laughing at something or someone. Laughter is one of my biggest stress relievers and which also has been proven to help out your immune system as well, so not only am I relieving stressing but I'm also doing something to help my body out. I enjoy watching funny movies, hearing funny stories or jokes, or being in funny situations (as evidenced by this story that I wrote about last fall: http://limitedhero.blogspot.com/2008/11/laughter.html). My family shares in this passion as laughter has been one of our ways of dealing with life's many difficult times, the picture above of my older sister and I was above was taken during Christmas time when things in our family was not going very smoothly.

As I approach my final semester of college, there seems to be a good deal of pressure on college seniors to worry and be fearful of what the future holds for us. We hear all the time that job security isn't as strong as it use to be, our country is headed to a greater depression, finding the job of your dreams is nearly impossible or finding someone you want to spend the rest of your life much more challenging than in previous times. It seems to me that in these situations, we forget our ability to laugh.

I was watching Conan O'Brien a couple of nights ago and one of his segments was called, "In The Year 3000." In this sketch, Andy Richter and Conan wear cheesy space costumes, almost reminiscent of old sci-fi films from the fifties. They go back and forth sharing one liners about what the future will be like, which I found hysterical. Their jokes ranging from political figures, sports athletes, celebrities and technology. One joke in particular made me laugh very hard was when Conan announced that Facebook, Twitter and Youtube merged into one website entitled, "You Twit Face."

I think that this comedic look into what will be the headlines in 991 years made it's point very clear. The future as far away as it seems is not something to be afraid of, but there will always be things there to remind us to laugh. It's like a modern day, Capre Diem, by seizing the day, we will find joy in life which will help us keep our head above the growing tides of uncertanity.

Who knows what my future will hold after I graduate in December? I do know this, I will laugh, often and frequently.