Why we don’t laugh as much as we did before.....
We live in a world now where we seem to be continuously under pressure, where everything seems so much faster, stress is greater, answers are sought quicker and where we seem to have less time, time to stop and reflect and take stock, time to smile, time to laugh. There are many reasons we don’t laugh as much as we did before and it’s not for the lack of comedians, sitcoms, theatre, social media and so on, but rather I’m talking about our capacity for laughter, our ability to make space for humour and having humour as a state of mind, an approach we always look to promote on our humour programmes
In keeping with the theme of this competitive high-pressure and high-tension world and perhaps why we laugh less, I have outlined below what I view as a list of modern-day stresses, they’re not official of course but just a view, they don't have any routes in scientific or medical studies but offer some ideas and throughts ....and they’re of course designed more to evoke discussion but do indeed highlight the need for more humour in our lives.
Time Scarcity: We never have enough time to do anything – we always have other things to do
Information Saturation: We are saturated everyday with information from every angle – 24-hour Television, Radio, Advertising, Newspapers, Social Media, etc
Attention Poverty: We hear constant complaints of not getting enough attention or we are not being heard or no-one is listening
Instant Gratification: We are not prepared to wait anymore, we want things and we want them now
Validation Starvation: Our achievements and accomplishments fail to be recognised – we don’t get the validation we feel we are entitled to
Resilience Passivism: We seem to buckle at the latest signs of pressure – our resilience is tested on a seemingly more regular basis than ever before and many seem unable to fight to remain resilient becoming almost passive to the challenges faced
Self-help Explosion: Bookshops, Social Media and Televisions seemed to be filled with products to help you help yourself as we seem to have lost our ability to deal with challenges and address issues in our lives
Connection Disconnection: Advances in technology has enabled us to be more connected than ever before yet we spend that much time in front of screens or with our heads facing downwards that we have become disconnected with those around us, next to us, beside us and so on
Perspective Paralysis: We seem to have lost or lose perspective on many issues – we over-estimate or exaggerate, we seem to lose sight of how things actually are, our ability to maintain perspective seems to have been paralysed by events or other people
Values Deconstruction: Many of the values we hold or have held have been deconstructed as society evolves and we try to make sense of the world as we learn how to deal with change
Diversity Sensationalism: Diversity has been sensationalised in the media creating fear and panic about certain groups
Mental Congestion: We have seemingly much more to think about and many more decisions to make thus blocking or inhibiting our ability to think and rationalise
Situational Escapism: Such is the pressures of life that we seek to find solace away from everyday pressures where we can ‘escape’ to other situations thus not dealing with realities we actually face
Punishment Obsession: We live in a society that is keen to punish everyone who commits any kind of wrong - legal or otherwise – we don’t want to see anyone ‘get off’ even if it actually makes the situation worse, we all have a clear sense of justice and that justice must be exercised in order to deter others
Activism Burnout: Such are the images and messages that come to us by so many more mediums than before that we have grown ‘tired’ in many ways of taking a stand against things we might have rallied at in the past
Responsibility Negligence: We have become very good at asserting our rights but eerily woeful at acknowledging and assuming our responsibilities – it’s much easier to profess our rights than to take stock and reflect on what our responsibilities are as this might require some level of thinking and of course this takes time and energy and we might just end up losing face in the process if we have to reconsider and acknowledge what we knew to be true
Righteousness Affirmation: Being wrong or having to say sorry is something that we find more and more difficult and thus we always aim to be right or look to others to affirm how right we are rather than entertain the idea of others critiquing our sense of being right in order to help us be more thoughtful
Humility Depreciation: We seem to have forgotten about the importance of humility, about treating people with a little more respect, treating people as we would have ourselves treated
Fixation Intervention: Rather than working on transforming systems and processes we have become fixated with fixing things – we never seem to take the long-term view but rather always looking short-term fixes
Happiness Mythology: We’re always being encouraged to look for a state of happiness and thus creating an impression that it is always something that has to be sought, got and found whereby merely aiming for contentment will enable us reach greater levels of happiness
Complexity Overload: We seem to have developed the knack for complicating matters rather than adopting simple approaches, we always seem to want to come up with new ways of re-inventing, redrawing or adding to the wheel rather than just keep it simple
Spotlight Magnification: When we put the spotlight on a range of issues, concerns and fears we seem to magnify them beyond that what we need to thus creating more stress and worry.
