Blog Post 2-26-23 – It’s OK to Laugh When Things Go Wrong

Someone said…..

You are where you dreamed of being 5 years ago.

Well, I’m not. I’m nowhere near where I dreamed my life would be. I never thought I would be laid off my job in my 60s, I never thought I would need two hip surgeries or be faced with living in a big city so long. In fact, this is the opposite of what I wanted.

To say the last few years have been disappointing would be an understatement. But that doesn’t mean they need to continue to be.

Overly simplistic memes aside, stuff happens in our lives. And when I say “stuff” I don’t mean the fun stuff. I mean the messy, ugly, horribly sad, or tragic stuff. They stuff that makes us fall to the floor in the hallway and cry stuff. The stuff that makes us stop in the middle of a crowd and forget where the hell we were going stuff. The stuff that has us in an argument with our inner voice about getting up in the morning stuff. Yeah, that stuff.

It’s not like the tragedies, financial losses and emergencies wait for convenient times to happen. It’s not like the car breaking down for good is going to happen the day after you buy your new car, or the water heater is going to stop working in the summer. No, you’re going to not have hot water on the coldest day of the year, because that’s how things go.

It happens to all of us, every single one of us. And those memes saying how great everything is. Everything isn’t great. Sure, they’re meant to make us feel good, I get it, but sometimes, the best memes are the ones the make us laugh at the really icky stuff.

Some folks are addicted to what’s called “Pink Clouding”. They refuse to see anything negative. They don’t see balance in our world, even when it’s healthy to see the negatives. And it is. Saying no, or making jokes about or suffering isn’t a bad thing, especially if it makes us laugh.

We runners thrive off laughing about or loss of toenails, bathroom problems and other runner’s things. Where would the running world be without funny signs held up at races about not even being close to the finish line? Or how we’re doing Sunday Funday wrong?

So, it might be difficult when things go wrong, but sometimes, it’s good to laugh. Look up some running memes, I’ve included a couple, or a good comedy and don’t worry about that Facebook poster who always says life is wonderful. It mostly is, except when it isn’t. We’ll laugh it off and keep running!