A Laughing Matter

Another walk through the park. That goes without explenation, except that I got up early today and instead of getting off at Kichijyouji Station, I got off one stop before at Iinokashira Park Station and walked throught the park to work. It is a small station, and I was very impressed that they have a greeter. An old man who stands in front of the station and says "good morning" to the people on their way to work. Obviously everyone recognized him, and they all replied with their own cheery "Good morning!" Some stopped and chatted a bit. What a WOW! idea.

It reminds me a bit of the laughing meeting I helped implement at Arbor Brewing Company when I was a waiter there as a student. Apparently many companies in India take a couple minutes each morning to laugh. No jokes, no tickling, they just force themselves to laugh. When I was a waiter, one particularly crazy night, there was a waitress who was about to have a nervous breakdown so I took her in the back and forced her to laugh with me for 60 seconds. Of course she had a hard time laughing with nothing funny, but apparently me laughing with nothing funny was funny enough to make her laugh. It helped make the night liveable, and the two of us started to do this often. After a while a few others noticed and joined in. It got to the point that we would end some of the shift meetings by lauging for 60 seconds. This was right out in the middle of a dining room crowded with customers from the lunch shift, so naturally they wonder whats going on, and many start to laugh just seeing us laughing. Maybe it was just my imagination, but the whole mood of the reseraunt seemed to change when we did this.

Not too long after the owner of the pub heard about it and made it "policy" to laugh after every meeting. Nothing could have killed it faster. The policy was dead within a week and noone ever laughed again.

The point is that I often forget how small things like that can really change a whole day. As I grow more and more discontent with my current job and daily life, I forget to do the things that made me feel better in the past, such as laugh on the train (I always have a book in a book cover so people think I am laughing at something in the book, and I'm not just a freak), or a few years ago when I used to open my window, which faces popular walking path, and dance alone to a steel-drum cd in the morning for all the people who pass by and look in my window to see. I should really start up again, but I'll have to be careful about making it "policy".

Anyway, check out the photos, and click on "more" for more.