OK, OK, so it’s not rocket-science that laughing makes people feel better about life and about themselves while also putting them in a better mood, but not every person is blessed with too many opportunities to laugh in their lives.

I realize that I just stated a pretty basic fact.  Even so, and especially in today’s wild world, laughing more often can help each and every day seem a bit brighter than they realistically are in some peoples’ lives. Most of my blogs up till now have covered a number of other subjects but nothing about laughter and its uplifting feeling. Probably due to the fact that I went to a catholic school, St Francis of Assisi, up through 8th grade, my humor was very G-rated and had a lot to do with different things happening in class, including certain teachers, including two, my fourth and fifth teachers, who were nuns. You see, I found that laughing as often as possible made going to school somewhat bearable. I wasn’t dumb but I only achieved honors one time(7th grade) in eight years. I was never a troublemaker but I wasn’t a model student either.

Now, laughter is a great thing when you’re supposed to laugh, but for people(myself included) who lack composure and laugh at inappropriate times, it can also be met with anger, punishment or embarrassment by a parent, teacher or any other authoritative figure. Some of the clearest memories from those years come from when I was an alter boy at our church-also St. Francis- in Torrington,CT.

The reason for most of my mid-mass giggles came from my three older brothers Steve, Kevin and Owen. As a family-10 of us in all-we usually attended the same mass every Sunday morning together but a few times of those masses, I was scheduled to serve that particular Mass. Even though I didn’t bust out laughing during every one of those Mass’ that I served, it happened more often than those in charge ever wanted it to.

It was at those times-when Steve would make the oddest but most hilarious faces at me, faces that I’d seen a bunch of times before that, that I was wishing I did not have such good eyesight. That was because I knew, every time I looked that my eyes wandered over to where they were that I would break down laughing, biting my gums or tongue in a desperate attempt not to burst out in front of a crowded church.

I am sure that there were plenty of other places and times that my brothers got me to break out laughing when I shouldn’t have been, but I would not trade those times for anything. It was times like those that I began to understand how important it is to laugh, no matter whether it’s accidentally or on purpose because it could change your present mood or outlook on life in an instant.