SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

LAUGHTER
101

SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

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 LAUGHTER 101

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Samuel Ufot Ekekere©2015
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

 Life’s labors
 Activating your power to laugh
 Usurping your laughing capacity to challenge life’s troubles
 Getting more from life by laughing
 Healing as a result of laughter.
 Tapping from laughter’s benefits
 Enrolling into the laughing school of thought
 Reaching beyond today’s possibilities by laughing away
 Extinguishing present troubles with the laughter medicine.
 Vacating present position by laughing
 Escaping the life of sadness and hopelessness by laughing
 Rating your happiness level
 You deserve to laugh

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INTRODUCTION
The average everyday life is characterized
by its series of troubles. Life is absolutely
complicated and one may not comprehend
the reasons why such complications occur.
These complications leaves us in sadness
querying why unpremeditated actions
should take place in the face of harrowing
life experiences.
We want to laugh so long through life even
in the face of its challenges. It seems a big
huddle though because of the seemingly
uphill difference that characterizes the
challenging life and a laughing smiling life.
There always seems that reason we give for
not allowing that big smile relieve us of our
burdens.
Truth is laughter feeds the soul. A laughing
mind transcends beyond every upheaval it
faces. It builds around the mind a seeming
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confidence of a better future even when

the present seems herculean. The ruptures
of laughter permeate as many minds as it
comes across causing those minds to be
triggered into a laughing life too.
The beauty of a laughing life is the positive
health effects that it projects. Laughter
helps build a healthy lifestyle providing
solutions to daring illnesses such as high
blood pressure, stress etc., thus helping to
free the body from all the clogs that hold it
down.
The effect of a despairing life is the
hopelessness that it propels. Laughter in
the order hand projects hope, faith and
confidence. It portrays our happy state and
reveals an inner strength only projected by
our capacity to overlook our burdens and
see way past our present predicaments.

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The best and cheapest lifestyle you can

afford to have is one filled with laughter. It
doesn’t cost much and it isn’t complicated.
It’s an easy life that lightens and even
enlivens you beyond what you could ever
imagine. It doesn’t cost a dime. It just
requires your own decision or choice to
stay happy.
Your choice is your choice and no one
else’s. That face is banking on you and no
one else to revel in the joyful moments that
life presents. It is dependent on you to
create for yourself those happy, joyful,
laughing moments in spite of what life
offers. Your choice means, it all depends on
you. Only you can feed yourself with all the
happiness that you deserve.
So here, you are reading this and
wandering “can I really have a fulfilled
happy life?” Sure, you can produce that life.
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

You can laugh all the way through the

upheavals that characterize life. You can
get through all that difficult moments and
still keep that cheerful look. It all depends
on you, your decision to go through my
book, gulp the words in it, revel in its
thoughts and act as it will demand of you.
What’s that problem that has kept your
face stone caged? C’mon, you’ve found the
right antidote. Just laugh. It’s possible now
and possible for the rest of your living
days. You will feel relieved from all the
burdens and hopelessness into a new life.
You may ask yourself what you have to do
to instigate you into laughing. Just read on.

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1
LIFE’S LABORS

From the moment you stepped into this

world, you found yourself with “work” and
“pain.” The first act to ascertain if a new
baby is alive is a hard back tapping by the
matrons or nurses at the hospital. The
baby shrieks and cries as he feels the pain.
The natural tendency is to cry or feel sad
for just about everything because that was
how he came into the world. We often do
not jump into the world smiling so smiling
seems like an art we have to learn as we
live. A baby naturally knows when to cry
and keep a frowning face because life often
tend to supply more of the things that
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makes us sad and cry. He however has to

learn to smile some way by an external
stimuli.
We grow with the mentality that crying
and sadness is a natural part of our
existence. This tendency is often why it’s
much easier to keep a stone caged face
than a smiling one. All life contains is
labour. We must work and work really hard
too. It seems everything that one has to do
involve one labour or another. We labour to
eat, labour to dress, labour to travel, labour
to talk, and labour to sleep. Almost
everything we do is subject to some form
of labour or another.
We must labour however way we view life.
Sometimes we tend to question the fact of
life as a labour ground. This is because we
assume that life should supply us with a
field day where we can have everything we

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want at our footsteps without so much of

our laboring for them. That’s a mare wish
anyway because even the richest men on
earth still labour to keep their wealth, The
strongest men still labour to keep their
strength, the most influential men still
labour to keep their influence. Whether
you find yourself in the upside of life or
downward, it requires labour to stay where
you are.
Life’s labour could be interesting when
perhaps you find some joy in your labour.
Most persons though hardly find that joy in
what they do. They feel depressed, pressed
down and pained. They are overwhelmed
with work that they never find good
reasons to be joyful. These people are
those who think any labour is hard work.
Some people however seem happy in their
labor. These persons seem to find
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fulfillment in what they do however

tedious it may seem.
Have you ever wondered why you’d find
two persons who earn similar pay and
work the same jobs yet one may be fulfilled
while the other isn’t? That’s the relativity
of life. Similar labour could be great for a
person and terrible for another. What
causes this isn’t the job or labour in itself
but the person or personality.
You must realize that if you are to ride in
life’s fulfillment, you must understand life’s
labour as
L- The only LEGITIMATE path to living a
happy life. You can’t eat when you don’t
work and you can’t work when you don’t
eat. Our labour or work opens the door to
our appreciating the quality of life and
hands us the opportunity to also afford this
quality of life.

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A- The ALTRUISTIC responsibility that we

have to bear to live a happy life. Nothing
comes easy and a happy life will certainly
come at a cost. That cost is our labour, or
work.
B-A BASIC requirement for the obtaining
and sustenance of a happy life. We survive
by our constant labour. Anything you want
is subject to and dependent on how much
you are ready to labour for it, how much
sacrifice you are ready to make to see the
fruition of your idea.
O-An OSTENSIVE measure to fight lack,
boredom and criminality. To have, one
must work to afford it. Staying without
doing anything could lead to boredom
which could also lead one to acting
contrary to laid down rules of society. If we
must fight this three attributes, we must
labour.
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U-An UPLIFTING TASK that supply’s one

with dignity. One gets dignity from his
labours. When one can afford the quality of
life that he deserves, he finds himself living
an upbraided life of value.
R-A REALISTIC every day task that should
supply us with all the benefits that life can
supply and enable us live a dignifying
quality life.
Life’s labours are necessary for the
achievement of anything plus a life of
laughter. These labours may seem tasking
only to the man who considers it as so. We
wake to a life of labour and sleep from a
life a labour. We are born to labour and we
die from labour.
It’s often refreshing to note that it is only in
life’s labour we truly find true fulfillment,
happiness and a life of laughter. That
person who can help you find that

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fulfillment and laughter in that labour is

you.
You have to labour anyway and life can and
will supply you enough of it as you desire.
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

2
ACTIVATING YOUR POWER TO LAUGH

We have seen that life supplies us so much

of labour. Naturally, no one wants to work.
We want so easy a world where everything
is obtained at our finger tips, but life
doesn’t work that way. Even those who are
born with silver spoons will have to labour
somewhere in their lives to keep their
silver spoons.
Most Labour isn’t always interesting
though, so most persons, a large chunk of
us on earth will keep stoned faces. Some
kinds of work are considered not
dignifying, some are inspiring, some are

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average, some poor yet they are labour and

one has to be happy doing them.
Happiness doesn’t result from what we do
or how we live. It consists in our own
nature. Unlike pain, sadness and tears
which have being activated at birth by the
hitting of the matron or nurse, laughter is
activated only by the individual who learns
to respond to laughter’s external stimuli, a
stimuli that comes as we live in life.
Laughter results from a happy mood or
state which is caused by the attainment of
a positive action or an achieved
expectation. We often laugh because that
satisfied part of us has being triggered,
that part that offers content benefits for
which we find amusing.
A laughing life elopes from right within us.
It exists right inside us but we often choose
the sad life ahead of it because that seems
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the easier life to live. It invariably means

that laughing could require something like
the application of some energy to achieve.
This may make some person back off from
a laughing life. Well, so much as energy is
required to laugh; we need energy to do
everything in life, this energy we also apply
in our labour or daily work.
We could define this form of human energy
as dual, The NEGATIVE and POSITIVE
energy. The negative energy involves that
form of energy that negates our thinking
capacity and pushes us into an endless
state of depression and sadness. It’s the
most popular you’d find around. This
energy makes one nag, cry, feel sad or even
curse some other person because
situations aren’t going well as expected.
The positive energy in the other hand
carries some form of fire. It triggers

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positivity in life, develops hope, builds

faith, carries charisma and engineers great
possibilities. It’s an unpopular energy
though because it is hardly used; however
like negative energy it also exists inside
every one. A laughing life is an offspring of
this positive energy.
So many persons marvel at how certain
people live their lives ever happy and
laughing all the way even in what seems
like worse situations. Maybe you might
have asked that question yourself. The
answer isn’t far-fetched. This persons
learnt to trigger and activate their capacity,
power or energy to laugh at every moment
they found themselves in a dark pool of
negative energy.
How do they activate this power?
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These persons LEARN to appreciate every

situation in life however good or bad as
necessary to get the best in them
These persons ALLOW only useful desires
and thought come around them. They
shade off negative thoughts and desire.
These people UNLEASH their passion and
zest for the kind of life they want to live.
They want to be happy and laughing so
they unleash their passion for laughter
doing all in their capacity to find some
good reason to laugh every time.
This persons GUIDE their thoughts. Our
thoughts are often what pull us into this
dark negative energy that results in worry
and pain. Our thought often may make us
think something is impossible when we
haven’t tried at all, when indeed we could
have reveled in the joy of a major
achievement. Guiding our thought from

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inappropriate thinking will help us focus

more on achieving and the resulting
laughter.
These people ensure they aim HIGH. To
stay happy, means you are high up above
your challenges. Those who laugh over
situations see beyond, the present
possibilities that will supply a desirable
future result.
You have the power to laugh. It requires
only changing how you think. This may not
be automatic neither is it a fast rule. It will
require some consistency in your acts. If
you were always this pessimistic person,
you will need to break off from that shell
and create an optimistic air. Start with
even trivial things if you doubt big things.
Step out from your comfort zone and look
for that difficult scenario that you think
you don’t see possibility in. Begin to think
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there is some possibility and speak it. Keep

saying it till you believe it entirely. You
would have changed so lot about you.
If your location makes you think the way
you do, change it. Move from where you
are to a more positive environment.
Change friends if necessary and get into
thinking bigger things that you never
would have thought. Having a set personal
goal you are pursuing keeps you busy and
happy too at the attainment of that goal.
Don’t sit at contentment level. Those who
are often happy change as often as
possible.

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3
USURPING YOUR LAUGHING CAPACITY
TO CHALLENGE LIFE’S TROUBLES

The very fact that you’ve leant to laugh in

every situation doesn’t mean there will not
continue to be difficult challenges. We’ve
seen already that life is trouble filled and
one has to labour to get round them. The
difference which developing a laughing life
causes is the continuous capacity to
challenge every trouble that arrives
whatever happens.
You can practical laugh off your challenges.
This may sound weird and perhaps
amusing. You’d imagine having an exam
and laughing away to the exam hall
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without preparing. That’s not what I mean

though. What I mean is you can laugh off
through the preparation process easing
yourself by keeping positive faith and
keeping your gait high while you prepare
and expect so much of a good result when
you are through.
Living a life of laughter absolutely brings
us to a heightened state of expectancy
however bad situation may be or
challenging present state may seem. If you
can laugh, then you can challenge life’s
troubles. The ability to keep a laughing face
in every situation is one that is hardly
found but it can be developed as we have
seen.
So much as we desire to always laugh and
keep a happy mood, life comes with every
of its trouble to keep that face stiff and
caged. Life doesn’t want you smiling. You

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cried into it so it expects you continue to

cry through it. However your
determination to laugh is the same
determination that you require to stay
afloat over life’s troubles.
So you want to challenge life’s troubles. Yes
you do. It’s a remarkable laughing route.
You don’t really have to sound so tough and
hardened to get past life’s tough routes.
You can ease your way and laugh so easy
through it. Here’s how.
Locate where and how you want to live
beyond present challenge. You must be
able to picture where you feel you should
be after all your current hell of problems
or challenges are over. If you can’t see the
picture, you can’t get there.
Assuage the burdens of present challenge
by releasing yourself into a laughing
atmosphere. Burdens will be burdens and
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you can’t run from them. What can happen

is to ease your way past them into an
easier life.
Usurp nature’s gifts to help you find that
solace that you think you should have. In
nature are so many reasons to laugh.
Nature always has a way to challenge its
problems without you suffering from its
aftermaths. Like nature, you can apply her
skills to help you get through your
problems with ease.
Grow. We naturally grow out of many
challenges not necessarily because we
solved them, but we became too big and
outdid the challenges. A laughing life helps
us grow. It helps us rise and create that
aura of bigness.
Hope. Life problems become mince meat
when we learn to hope by laughing away
the challenges. Those that have big hope

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often are very happy people. They smile

because they have something bigger they
are picturing, that bigger picture that
keeps them smiling even if today isn’t
great.
Life is so big a training ground and so small
a stadium and we tend to give up playing
because we think all we have to play in is
the training pitch. In the real sense though,
the stadium is where matters and that’s
where the real game will be played. Your
challenges are like training pitches, and
only laughing away the stress of playing
here can take you to the real stadium
where champions are celebrated.
When next you find yourself caged and loss
of what to do, just laugh and feel happy
about the situation. You will be over it in
no time.
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

4
GETTING MORE FROM LIFE BY
LAUGHING

When I was a little boy, children had this

notion that asking for more was greed.
When an adult offered biscuits or anything
whatsoever, however sweet it was, we
couldn’t ask for more. We accepted
contentment as being the rule even when
we wanted what was in the offering. We
would wait for the adult to leave and then
go about from peer to peer asking for what
our peers too were not satisfied of. If any
one of us managed to bolster courage to
ask, we gnarled at him as being selfish in

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the presence of that adult but celebrated

his tenacity and courage behind the adult.
I’ve observed that same attribute has
grown with us. Today’s adults are afraid of
asking for more. We overly assume
contentment as the standard and keep a
stone faced but right inside us there is that
un-quenching desire for more that
assumes a parallel role with our drive for
contentment which could make us happy
and laughing. We tend not to know the
difference between contentment and
satisfaction. We assume that we cannot
and should not be overly optimistic about
the huge possibilities that are possible
when we ask for some more than what is
offered us. We seem unaware it is our place
to have so much and be satisfied.
Whether one likes it or not, there comes a
time in our lives when we get overly tired
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with where we are or what we have now.

Our minds are subject to passions of
change, because life changes. We think we
need more than we are getting and maybe
have to strive to get that more that we
deserve. It is normal to feel this way. This
thinking pattern is the inertia for doing
more and getting more from life. Life
wouldn’t give you anything if you don’t
desire that something.
In life, everything is available. Life is a
spring of endless possibilities only to a
man who taps from that spring. There
could be a spring out there with so much
water but it requires the man who is
desirous to go and drink from the
resources. How much you drink from it is
dependent on your desire and thirst. You
may decide all you need is just to quench

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your present thirst or to keep some for the

future too.
Don’t feel bad about your changing desire.
It’s got to happen and that’s why we are in
life. You certainly need something more
than what you are having and you need
that more every other time. This is what
keeps life interesting.
Now, how do you get that more? We get it
by laughing.
Looking out for opportunities to get more
of what you have. We can’t accept where
we are. Our eyes have to be open to the
opportunities available for us to develop
ourselves to positions where more can
come into our hands.
Ask. Some persons may realize they need
more but they feel encumbered asking. The
want more life is dependent on your ability
to ask and demand that more. You need to
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ask for that more. If you think you are

worth an increase at your company, ask. If
you feel you are not getting full value for
your services, ask. If you think you expect
more of yourself than you are getting from
yourself, you can ask yourself too. When
we ask, we receive.
Unite. Your input must equal your desire
for more. There has to be a unity index. Do
you need more of what you want; you have
to strive for it. Put in the right energy and
that more will arrive.
Go take action. Now that you know you’ve
got to ask and put in an input that is
required, you have to begin to act. Take
action and work towards that more. We
can leave envisioning point and walk
towards accomplishment.
Hunt. As you have taken action, hunt for
that more. One can take action but can take

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negative action. It’s not just about taking

action is taking action directed towards a
point.
Getting more is a paradigm shift from
contentment. This does not mean you can’t
be content but those who stay at
contentment level do not develop the drive
to achieve. They are the ones, who think
others are making more through negative
means. They choose rather to bear the pain
of living in mediocrity in the name of
contentment than breaking all the barriers
to living the much more life. They silently
curse behind the boss and pretend to be all
nice before him. The reason is because
they feel handicapped asking for more of
what they should get.
You have the right to the more you want.
No one has a right to what you deserve
except you allow them. It wouldn’t take so
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much more than just daring a bit however

scary you feel that person, act towards that
more.
Your resoluteness at getting more of what
you want can help define if you will
actually get it or not. We may not get all
that we ask at the first time asking. We
have to persist until we get what we want.
There’s always that sense of satisfaction
that fills our heart when we get that more
that we want. Imagine how happy you
would feel if your boss gives you a wage
increase. When you get more of what you
want, you will certainly feel happy and
satisfied.
You deserve that more that you want.

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5
LAUGHTER’S HEALING WINGS

Laughter has huge healing effects. If you’ve

watched adverts portraying the efficacy of
some health and wealth products, you
observe that the actors often give a smiling
laughing face to portray their wellness. As
much as people laugh to reveal how well
they are, laughter also causes that good
health that is portrayed.
Physicians tell us that the power to staying
healthy is by being happy. This happiness,
they claim results from a healthy mental
state of mind as well as body brought
about by the quality of food we eat,
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exercises and perhaps the kind medical

care we give ourselves.
Psychologists tell us that the state of the
mind determines the quality that the body
will result. They claim that those whose
mind state are always happy tend to always
get happy things on their path while those
who develop moody atmosphere around
them often keep that moody state however
good situations becomes. Well, personally,
I’ve discovered too that the secret to
leaving an ageless life is by staying
laughing. I’ve studied many persons
around and beyond me. I came to this
conclusion only after observing that some
of my always happy friends and neighbors
often ran away always happy with the
better happy benefits.
A friend once seeing my distraught state
advised me. He said, “You don’t have to

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worry about whatever is going on around

you. If you worry, you will go leaner. Just
smile and let everything take their place.
Life is better with that smile of yours.” I
never took his words that time and I
worried till I fell into depression and
became sickly. The moment I eased myself
and chose to be happy anyway, I began to
regain my self-consciousness, and my
health returned. I’ve seen that pattern in as
many people I’ve come across. When one is
unhappy, it may not immediately tell, but it
sure tells after some time on how pale the
person becomes.
Laughter has the following health boosting
effects.
Lowers blood pressure
People who lower their blood pressure,
even those who start at normal levels, will
reduce their risk of strokes and heart
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attacks. So grab the Sunday paper, flip to

the funny pages and enjoy your laughter
medicine.
Augments cardiac health
Laughter is a great cardio workout,
especially for those who are incapable of
doing other physical activity due to injury
or illness. It gets your heart pumping and
burns a similar amount of calories per
hour as walking at a slow to moderate
pace. So, laugh your heart into health.
Unleashes the release of endorphins
Endorphins are the body’s natural pain
killers. By laughing, you can release
endorphins, which can help ease chronic
pain and make you feel good all over.
Grows the number of T cells
T cells are specialized immune system cells
just waiting in your body for activation.
When you laugh, you activate T cells that

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immediately begin to help you fight off

sickness. Next time you feel a cold coming
on; add chuckling to your illness
prevention plan.
Hold back stress hormone levels
You benefit from reducing the level of
stress hormones your body produces
because hormone-level reduction
simultaneously cuts the anxiety and stress
impacting your body. Additionally, the
reduction of stress hormones in your body
may result in higher immune system
performance. Just think: Laughing along as
a co-worker tells a funny joke can relieve
some of the day's stress and help you reap
the health benefits of laughter.
Relaxing your muscles. Laughter has the
capacity to relax one’s muscles. Unlike
exercises that may be tiring and energy
consuming, laughter eases your muscles
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with ease because it helps one keep a

steady mind and spirit
Improving sleep. Laughter has a way to
improve sleep. A happy person would
naturally find sleep easy meat as his mind
and thoughts is relax. Those who think
and have fear that keeps them unhappy
often find sleep difficult. That’s when you
hear some person complain of nausea.
Those that make laughter a habit and live a
happy lifestyles find sleep enjoyable
Enhancing creativity and memory.
Laughter enhances one’s creativity and
memory. Many researchers have posited
that those who make laughter a lifestyle
have often proven to be more creative and
capable of remembering quite a lot. This is
expected especially when one relaxes and
enjoys lots of sleep. It’s only normal that
this happens as a fruit of laughter.

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Easing digestion. Laughter eases

digestion. Because laughter is aroused
from the stomach region, the intestinal
tissues are exercised steadily thus
improving their efficiency and capacity.
Enhancing oxygen intake. The amount of
oxygen taken in can be enhanced by
laughter. Laughter stretches blood vessels
such as the veins and arteries allowing
them work at higher efficiency and also
relax the muscles so that important
nutrients the body needs such as oxygen
find their way into the body.
Boosting immune function.
Laughter dissolves distressing emotions.
You can’t feel anxious, angry, or sad when
you’re laughing. Laughter helps you relax
and recharge. It reduces stress and
increases energy, enabling you to stay
focused and accomplish more.
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Humor shifts perspective, allowing you to

see situations in a more realistic, less
threatening light. A humorous perspective
creates psychological distance, which can
help you avoid feeling overwhelmed.
Laughter is a great act -- that's why you've
all heard the saying, “Laughter is the best
medicine." There is strong evidence that
laughter can actually improve health and
help fight disease. Laughter can increase
your overall sense of well-being. Doctors
have found that people who have a positive
outlook on life tend to fight diseases better
than people who tend to be more negative.
So smile, laugh and live longer!

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6
TAPPING FROM LAUGHTER’S BENEFITS

How do you tap from the enormous

benefits of laughter? Its great knowing all
the great things one could get from
developing a laughing life. The other side is
the conscious walk that it involves
especially if you haven’t being enjoying
these benefits.
Laughter has great health benefits, lifestyle
benefits, even industrial effect. Laughter
just may be the best medicine for both
good health and optimal workplace
performance, two studies show. One study
found that watching funny films may
improve your job performance if your
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work involves creativity and solving

problems with more than one possible
answer—and if you happen to be male.
Allan Filipowicz, of INSEAD, showed
students a short comedy tape—a clip of
Bill Cosby or the movie Liar, Liar—or a
neutral video, then had them build a
Styrofoam bridge or tower that was as long
and aesthetically pleasing as possible. Men
who viewed the funny film did better than
men who viewed the neutral one, but
women who saw the comedy tape
performed slightly worse than those who
didn't. Unlike women, men became more
alert after watching the comedy clips,
sparking creativity.
Bruce Avolio, director of SUNY-
Binghamton's Center for Leadership
Studies, notes that telling jokes can boost
leaders' skills, too, if their managerial style

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 LAUGHTER 101

is transformational—meaning they urge

workers to question norms—or if it's
laissez-faire—that is, they leave workers
alone. But his office surveys also show that
humor hurts "contingent reward"
leaders—those who ask workers to obey
explicit instructions—since it distracts
employees from following strict orders.
If laughter has these great benefits, how
then can one manage to tap from this huge
“in us” resource that has often being
overlooked? Though it’s natural that we
laugh as part of a normal lifestyle, most
persons struggle to activate that laughing
side of them.
You sure want to laugh and laugh for the
rest of your life so as to benefit from the
huge benefits that comes with this action.
How do you go about it?
Creating opportunities to laugh
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

 Look at funny movies or TV shows.

These days there are a plethora of TV
shows and comedy movies that you can
spend your time to watch and laugh off.
 Go to a comedy club. Comedy clubs are
scattered all over your town, places
where you could run to and spend your
time laughing from comedians who ply
their trade by making people laugh.
 Read the funny pages on news papers
or journals. Newspapers often carry
comics describing current trends in a
satire way. You can always visit such
pages. There are also web pages on the
internet that are also sources of things
to laugh about.
 Seek out funny people. There are always
funny people everywhere who may not
necessary take comedy as a
professional but as a lifestyle. Being

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 LAUGHTER 101

around such persons will keep you

always lively with lots of things to laugh
about. Spend time with fun, playful
people. These are people who laugh
easily–both at themselves and at life’s
absurdities– and who routinely find the
humor in everyday events. Their playful
point of view and laughter are
contagious. Bring humor into
conversations. Ask people, “What’s the
funniest thing that happened to you
today? This week? In your life?”
 Share a good joke or a funny story. You
could also have great amusing
experience to share. Everyone does.
Share them with others and let others
join in the laughter.
 Check out your bookstore’s humor
section. There are lots of comedy books
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

you can find in the nearest bookshop.

Try your hands on them.
 Host a game night with friends. Hosting
a game or attending one could be a
great way to ease yourself off any
burden or depression and this could
keep you lively
 Play with a pet. Having pets around
could be a great way to relieve you. Pets
are fun to be around. Most of us have
experienced the joy of playing with a
furry friend, and pets are a rewarding
way to bring more laughter and joy into
your life. But did you know that having
a pet is good for your mental and
physical health? Studies show that pets
can protect you depression, stress, and
even heart disease.
 Go to a “laughter yoga” class.

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 LAUGHTER 101

 Goof around with children. Pay

attention to children and emulate them.
They are the experts on playing, taking
life lightly, and laughing.
 Do something silly.
 Make time for fun activities (e.g.
bowling, miniature golfing, karaoke).
 Laugh at yourself. Share your
embarrassing moments. The best way
to take yourself less seriously is to talk
about times when you took yourself too
seriously. Attempt to laugh at situations
rather than bemoan them
Look for the humor in a bad situation, and
uncover the irony and absurdity of life.
This will help improve your mood and the
mood of those around you. Surround
yourself with reminders to lighten up.
Keep a toy on your desk or in your car. Put
up a funny poster in your office. Choose a
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

computer screensaver that makes you

laugh. Frame photos of you and your family
or friends having fun.
Shared laughter is one of the most effective
tools for keeping relationships fresh and
exciting. All emotional sharing builds
strong and lasting relationship bonds, but
sharing laughter and play also adds joy,
vitality, and resilience. And humor is a
powerful and effective way to heal
resentments, disagreements, and hurts.
Laughter unites people during difficult
times.
Always keep things in perspective. Many
things in life are beyond your control—
particularly the behavior of other people.
While you might think taking the weight of
the world on your shoulders is admirable,
in the long run it’s unrealistic,

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 LAUGHTER 101

unproductive, unhealthy, and even

egotistical.
Deal with your stress. Stress is a major
impediment to humor and laughter. Just
laugh anyway and anyhow. You deserve it.
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

7
ENROLLING INTO THE LAUGHING
SCHOOL OF THOUGHT

How does one enroll into the laughter

school of thought? I personally had felt
jealous of a friend who I presumed was
always happy because he kept a smiling
face. I loved his smiles and I wanted it too
though I struggled to keep one. I had to ask
him and he offered me an advice, “Go
enroll in the laughing school of thought.”
I was one of those tight faced young men
who felt the world was on my bad side and
every other day was no better. I was
actually wrong because I was blind. I had
assumed keeping straight and firm was all

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that gave me the respect I wanted. The

respect didn’t come and happiness
disappeared. But I sure obeyed the advice
of my friend and enrolled into this laughter
thinking school. It took me just a few
months though and I was wearing a big
smile.
Are you ready to enroll? You sure are
beaming with smiles already as you read.
First thing you must do is “think.” Where
am I now and where will I want to be after
here? What is my situation and will I be
able to enjoy the benefits I am expecting?
What am I even expecting? Often times, we
fail to think about the better way to solving
our problems. Like me who knew what I
was doing wasn’t helping me with my
interactions with people, you too may have
realized how depressing you often feel and
desire you need a change. Don’t feel bad
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

about yourself, things like this has to

happen if you are to make any headway
with the way you lead your life.
Query yourself about what you’ve
observed about yourself and what has to
change. Once you can define what you
intend to see beyond now, you clear your
mind off any mountains or bars that will
stand against what you want. It gets easier
with each day and you are able to have a
clear cut picture of what you really want.
Free your mind. What do you like that you
have always desired around you.
Remember laughing doesn’t cost much
when you know how to get it and where to
get. Feel free to interact with people even if
they may not be high amongst your social
class. People who laugh the most are often
classless people. Don’t try to define your
class, accept you have no class and opt for

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 LAUGHTER 101

a classless lifestyle. You will find so much

pleasure in meeting with everyday people
where so much of free laughter often
arrives from.
Define your expectations. Think like this:
“I should be smiling” or “I should be
happier everyday”. Whatever is that
happier situation you think you should
have, picture yourself at it. Picture you
laughing, giggling, smiling and dancing in
joy. Think on this picture.
Look back at things that had always offered
you that stint of laughter that you expect to
be consistent. Yes, you are not always
unhappy. There will be some times when
you felt joy even though it never lasted. You
only wish your joy can last through your
lifetime. Note those things. How about if
those things that make you laugh frequent
your life often? Will it keep you laughing?
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

Find a way to get around those things that

have made you laugh. If it’s a friend, find
that friend, a family, find that family.
Become aware of your environment. Try to
absorb and feel nature. Those who are ever
in tune with nature are always happy.
Nature is always happy. Take time out
around the beach or on a hill side. Take
time to ponder on natures mystery and the
how the environment exist. You will
appreciate nature and find sweet relief
investigating those mysteries.
Understand God. The basis for real
happiness and a life of laughter is having a
life that’s tuned with God. Religious
gatherings could provide an ambience of
inspiration and spiritual renewal that
propels you into deep communion with
God. When I truly want to laugh, I find the
right spiritual ambience in a church and

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 LAUGHTER 101

attend the programs. I often find sweet

relief from such worship sessions in the
midst of seemingly happy people.
Get out of your closet. The happiest people
are people who live in a community with
others. They learn to share and absorb
others. Those who live sad lives are often
by themselves and influence no lives
around them. Happy people have quite a
lot of other happy persons too around
them.
Take time out to enjoy sports and athletics
with others. Laughter arrives from others
especially in a not too competitive
atmosphere.
Like any school that one has to get to, the
laughter school requires that you register.
Meaning it may cost you a bit, in that case
may be money may be required like when
you attend comedy shows at the cinema.
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

This actually should not be the norm. If it is

the norm, it may make your laughter
dependent on when you have money to pay
for those shows. The best laughter is often
free and always around you. You just have
to show your desire and the rest will take
its place.

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8
REACHING BEYOND TODAY’S
POSSIBILITIES BY LAUGHING AWAY

Everyone tend to look into the future with

the expectation of better things. We expect
tomorrow to be better than today and we
feed tomorrow with all the huge things we
assume it should be part. It’s always great
when one can have a future he can look up
to well painted.
As we grapple with life’s challenges, we
come to discover that our future better
that we are painting isn’t at all what we
expect it should be. We struggle with the
resulting fear of our picture becoming
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

increasingly too big for our hands to

handle. Yes, it seems a future we want to
live in but that future doesn’t arrive
soonest as we expect. We become
perturbed, disturbed and depressed. The
result is stagnancy.
You see, the future point you know you
want to live in isn’t always so easy to reach.
The reason is because our expectations are
always huge expectations which require a
process to manifest. This process will
require some patience. Some person may
assume that while one shows patience, it
may be a painful period. Sure, some times
it could be painful but it all depends on
you. Your expectation will sure arrive as
you believe. Before it arrives, you must
ease your way and stay laughing.
The happiest persons on earth are not the
people who have everything they expect to

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 LAUGHTER 101

have. No, they are persons who live happily

through their present moments with the
anticipation of the better future that they
want.
Do you know laughing through today’s
capacities can ease you towards the better
tomorrow attainment that you want to
have. This is because when you laugh, you;
Learn to develop a confidence about the
arrival of the better tomorrow by living
through today.
Activate a life spring which has the
capacity to spring you into your future
expectations through today’s challengers
Up your game and spur you to take charge
of the things that really matter today so as
to position you for the future better.
Get acting against the upheavals that
always arise against those who yearn for a
future better.
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

Hit the jackpot, that one that spirals you

from present not too sweet predicament to
the future possibilities that you expect
now.
It’s not always easy to laugh when you are
facing a not too good situation. It’s
understandable. But think about it, does
keeping a wretch face help you in your
present not too good situation? Not at all.
Rather it makes you look worse and out of
phase. What uplifts you is being happy and
staying happy through all the upheavals.
Today’s’ possibilities are often
incomparable to what you expect the
future to be. Thank God you know you have
a future you can be optimistic about. The
possibilities of that future can keep you
happy till you finally hit that place. Yes
what you anticipate in the future is a happy
future. Why not start being happy now. It’s

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 LAUGHTER 101

only a matter of time before you get that

happy status.
The future is great. Whatever you face
today has no place in how your future
turns. Just
Lay your present fears about the future
down
Attend to present challenges as they come
Unite your future aspirations with God’s
purpose for your life
Go ahead anyway, even if it’s dark now. All
is well through the dark of life.
Hit on the forward button. You can’t afford
to look back.
Are you stuck and confused about how
tomorrow’s meal or the expectations of the
future will arrive. How about if you just
laugh about it? Just laugh, you will get what
you expect anyway.
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

9
EXTINGUISHING PRESENT TROUBLES
WITH THE LAUGHTER MEDICINE

It’s normal for troubles to arise. The true

test of our resolve to challenge life only
comes when there is a challenge. Yes,
trouble will arrive from wherever it’s
coming from and we can’t do anything
about it when it comes. But we can face
those troubles by laughing. Trouble is just
like a fever that arrives and then we are
faced with taking on the fever by taking
pain killers.
Are you confused about any decision you
are trying to resolve without any headway?
May be you’ve being taking the wrong

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 LAUGHTER 101

approach. You’ve being thinking that by

being tough and hard faced, you can
resolve them. Well some challenges won’t
go away however tough one becomes.
When those tough troubles arrive which
being hard and tough cannot resolve, just
laugh away the trouble.
Laughter is a huge faith booster. A man
who has faith and confidence about an
action will laugh with ease. Trouble arises
to cause fear in our hearts about the events
we should be having great time at. A man
who wins finds a way to do away with fear
always finds a way to laugh. Fear strains
our face and keeps one’s heart shaky.
Laughter has the opposite effect. Laughter
propels us with enough energy to act in the
direction of our faith.
Like medicine that heals that headache or
fever, laughter calms all our troubles and
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

makes them seize. Your present troubles

seizes as soon as you choose to laugh. Now
you may think this isn’t logical, say you are
having a need for some money and then
you begin to laugh. Will laughter bring the
money? Yes you may be right to ask that
question. No, laughter may not bring that
money immediately but it supplies you
with an assurance that that the money will
arrive. It takes your mind off the challenge
and assures you the money has arrived
when indeed it is far away. We get what we
believe we should have. Once our belief can
reach what we want, it is only a matter of
time before it arrives. That space of time
can be used rightly by laughing it away.
What’s that trouble that’s presently
troubling you?

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 LAUGHTER 101

Leave it with God. God has all the grace to

bear all your present burdens. Just leave
them at his feet.
Accept that it’s normal for troubles to
arise. Don’t push them off. There is an able
in every trouble.
Undo those complicated knots that tie
your happiness down because of the
troubles you are currently facing.
Giggle a bit and as often as possible. You
deserve it.
Hasten to share your troubles with those
who have had experience getting through
theirs. They will help you with some
quality advice.
Yes, you may be at Trouble Mountain and
it’s only for a while. Trouble doesn’t last
forever. Frowning or being angry wouldn’t
help you feel better through it. What will
pay only is laughing through them with
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

God beside you. Whatever trouble you may

be going through at the moment will have
an expiry date. Just as it came, it will leave.
Just laugh

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9
VACATING PRESENT POSITION BY
LAUGHING

However good a person’s state, there is

that passion or desire to get over to the
better. Everyone hopes to get better than
what he already has. Some may see it as a
bad attribute especially in a world where
we are taught to be content and satisfied
with where we are and what we have. It is
not wrong to ask for more or get more. If
you think you deserve, you deserve more
and you can go ahead and get that more.
We’ve seen how one can vacate his
troubles and reach out for possibilities. You
might have thought; I don’t really have
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

trouble around me however I want to be at

some place better than where I am now.
Can laughter also move me to a better than
now condition? The question I’ll ask you is
why not.
The brain box behind anybody’s present
and future state is a passion to vacate the
present position that he is whether good or
bad to something better. I man may have a
car and a house and I may be content about
with my life. Once I discover I have to get
more and better than what I have, there is
propulsion that arrives that steers us to
work out some way we could get that thing
we want.
Stand from where you are now and take a
deep thought, look into the future and see
the better you in whatever form that you
are not in presently. Ask yourself how you
can get there. All the books you’d read will

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 LAUGHTER 101

tell you how much more you will have to

strive to reach it. Suddenly you picked this
book and you that you can laugh away to
the better position. Guess, it sounds weird
that all one needs to do to move ahead is
laugh.
I’ve stated in previous parts of this book
how that our stern desire and propensity
to act sometimes doesn’t change in anyway
what will arrive to us. Sometimes we may
be determined and focused towards the
better that we want but we fail to get that
better. This leads us to give up in our quest
for the better. I subscribe to laughter as an
answer.
I’ve personally had terrible experiences
which I assumed working so hard or
putting enormous input would help me get
through them. I’ve observed that at every
point I thought I had to move on in life,
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

frowning and keeping a serious face to

show I’m working towards my pursuit
never helped matters. I learnt to always
smile with the assurance of the better that
I want arrive. Keeping a serious stone face
only makes us sicklier than we were. Why
choose to go through a difficult sickening
process to get the better that we want
when we can be happy through the
process?
The man that laughs so long gets all the
favors and grace. You need some favor to
get you away from where you are. This
favor may be monetary, emotional or even
spiritual. In any case being happy helps
you grab this favors. A favored man has
doors open. These doors are what he
requires to go through to the better that he
wants. You won’t get favors from some
person who often sees you keeping a damn

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 LAUGHTER 101

ugly looking face. Favors arrive when we

smile and keep a happy disposition.
You’ve got to vacate present position and
Land at where you know you should be
Ascend to higher heights than where you
are currently
Usurp your capacity to attain a better life
Get all the benefits that a newer life
presents
Hit the bull’s eye for a translated life.
Aren’t you thinking where you are
presently isn’t the best for you? Just laugh
away.
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

10
ESCAPING THE LIFE OF SADNESS AND
HOPELESSNESS BY LAUGHING

Some years ago, I had accepted the life of

sadness as my status. I never smiled and
most persons stayed away from me
because they assumed that I was odd and
unfriendly when indeed I was the opposite.
I called up a young lady to speak with her
about a project I intended she’d work with
me on and she gave a berserk look at me
and I was stunned. I thought you are
inhospitable she said. I asked her why she
had that impression of me. She said every
time she passed my house and saw me; she
had this feeling that I was oddly scary. I

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 LAUGHTER 101

smiled and told her everyone thinks of me

as she does. I knew somewhere, I had to
break that lifestyle or it will affect my
relationship with others in the future.
The reason I was sad was because things
weren’t going the way I had anticipated. I
had being jobless and trying my hands on
one or two things that never made
headway. I got stuck in hopelessness and
depression stole in. the moment I
discovered that there was no good in my
being sad or depressed; I began to ease
myself and revel in the joy that surrounded
me. I escaped that life. Yes sometimes I am
tempted to return back to that state but I
have determined that nothing is going to
make me unhappy or sad. I go around
laughing over my problems and the things
that make me sad. I find reasons to laugh in
that saddening challenge or storm. Once
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

laughing became my lifestyle, I found my

way round difficult challenges
We can be sad sometimes but when it
becomes a habit, there’s a problem.
Situations could be hopeless but when we
become hopeless about the situation, that’s
a problem. If you are acutely always sad
and feel hopeless, it pays to ease your self
off by taking bouts of laughterquine. Take
the options offered in previous sections of
this book. Fighting hopelessness and
sadness may not be easy at first. You may
always find it the first option before you
can even think. If you act this way and find
yourself running towards your sad and
hopeless state, just laugh.
You must show desperation to quit this
lifestyle if you find yourself suppressed by
them. This will lead you to

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 LAUGHTER 101

Loose all the quirks that bind you and

makes you feel sad and hopeless and
release you to freedom.
Assuage all the fears that characterize your
life, increasingly developing your capacity
to see the brighter side and hope.
Unleash your drive to achieve what you
hope for and to attain contentment from
having that lifestyle attained.
Go against every action that pushes you
towards a state of hopelessness and
sadness.
Hasten towards the brighter side of life
however dark and depressing conditions
around you are. There is always a brighter
side around.
There is always that Laughter Bridge that
helps you cross over that depressing, sad
and hopeless situation. It all depends on
your desire to climb over the bridge or you
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

choose to go through the waters of sadness

and hopelessness. Well, you will choose the
laughter bridge. Any other way may be
dangerous and costly. Just laugh.

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11
RATING YOUR LAUGHTER LEVEL

How much laughter dose do you take every

day? How much time do you spend
laughing every day? Can one measure how
much time he spends laughing? You may
presume that this is difficult a task
especially as we don’t take our time to
measure or there are no yardsticks we can
use to measure the quality and quantity of
laughter that evolves from them. We tend
to define people by how much of smiles or
laughter that is evoked from their faces. We
often say that person is always moody,
always happy, always ecstatic, always sad
or any other language just to describe how
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

we view the persons in relation to how he

should laugh.
Everyone expects every other person to
laugh as often as or be happy always.
That’s a natural want. It’s just that this fails
to happen in real life.
How do you go about measuring how much
laughter you give off every day? Knowing
the amount of laughter will help you make
adjustments and give yourself more of it
and help you find reason to get more of it.
Ask others what impression they have
about you. We tend to always have a good
notion of ourselves however bad the
ratings of others. We have being taught
that what others say or how they feel about
who we are is inconsequential on how we
lead our lives so we often don’t mind what
others say. You will have to rethink again.
Others have a better perspective of your

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 LAUGHTER 101

external attributes. They may not have a

sense of what’s inside you but they see
what’s around you and they are in good
stead to comment about the things they
see.
Don’t feel shy asking. Feel free to open up
to the closest persons around you and ask
for sincerity in what they tell you about
how they feel about you.

Answer the following questions or let

someone help you by personalizing the
questions
Do you love seeing others laugh? Yes/No
Do you think others are morons or
insane because they laugh? Yes/No
Do you love to make others happy and
laughing? Yes/No
Do people say that you make them
happy and laughing when they are
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

around you? Yes/No

Do you struggle to laugh when others
are laughing? Yes/No
Do you like people who laugh often?
Yes/No
Are you always interested in programs
that stimulate you to laugh? Yes/No
If you’ve answered the questions correctly,
you may have a clue how much of laughter
you have in that head of yours.
The higher your number of “yes”, the
higher your laughter index.
if you score one “yes”, its one over seven
the total number of yes over seven gives
you your score.
7 laughter freak
6 laughs often
5 laughs once in a while
4 neutral
3 sometimes unhappy

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 LAUGHTER 101

2 usually unhappy
1 sad
0 very sad.
By now you can grade where you stand. If
you deserve to laugh, you deserve to laugh.
SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE

YES YOU DESERVE TO LAUGH

If you check the laughter grading system
developed in the previous chapter, by now
you know where you stand. Everyone
deserves to laugh even if it means just a
few minutes every day. Already you’ve seen
the immense benefits of laughter. If you are
on the lower side of the scale, you know
you will have to do more to cause you to
laugh.
It is amazing to note that a majority of
persons around us have a laughing index
that fall below 3. In some cultures, laughter
is reserved for uncultured persons. These
persons find nothing musing no matter
how much one tries to propel that side of
them. These persons are those we refer to
as sadists. You don’t want to live like this.
Life is fun and you must enjoy the fun that
arrives with living life

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 LAUGHTER 101

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