When I can see life’s hiccups as great cosmic jokes, I’m able to literally laugh my way through struggles, annoyances, and challenges.

It can be so liberating to take life less seriously. Something I have lots of opportunities to practice.

From a very young age, I’ve taken life quite seriously. Around the time I turned eight, life shifted dramatically for me, and I no longer felt “safe” to be a carefree child.

It’s been such a long process of re-learning what it means to laugh at life and all the follies that befall us.

Take, for example today: only the second day of hybrid learning in which my children (and my husband) are all gone from the house for 3 hours! Bliss, right?

My youngest son and I walked out to the car to head to the school only to find that something was terribly wrong with the car. Ironically, we had returned a borrowed second car just last night, after not needing it more than once in the past few days.

Suffice it to say, after I panicked and cursed the universe for taking away my recently gifted time, a friend offered to give my son a ride to school and loan us her spare car.

Wide eyed at the grace and support I felt in that moment, I stepped back into the house, laughing. Of course this would happen today. Of course the solution would literally appear on my doorstep within 15 minutes of discovering the problem.

I could almost hear the cosmos pointing their fingers at me, laughing in good humor, at their little joke.

Growth from our personal struggles – large and small – are not a guarantee. As with so many things, it’s a conscious choice. One that, when taken, yields compassion, grace, and patience – with ourselves, and others. And if we’re lucky, there will also be a generous helping of laughter on the side.

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