Just because life is full of ups and downs doesn’t mean you need to be stuck on an emotional rollercoaster.
Photo by Liam MacLeod
It’s one of those days when anything that can go wrong has gone wrong. You know—the days when you’re seconds away from either giving a strongly worded, emotionally fueled rant or breaking down into a messy bout of tears. Though it may not seem like it during these moments, there is a third option. You can laugh.
In Sister Sharon G. Samuelson’s start-of-the-semester devotional “Shall I Laugh or Shall I Cry,” Sister Samuelson gave the following advice, “There is strength in laughter that can give you the means to overcome difficulties and enable you to keep life’s ups and downs in perspective and balance.”
An unfortunate fact of life is that sometimes you can’t control whether things are on the up or down. But just because your life is full of ups and downs doesn’t mean you must be stuck on an emotional rollercoaster. Sister Marjorie Hinckley had this advice in her book Small and Simple Things for handling life and all its difficulties: “The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache.” There are times for tears and times for anger. There are times when life requires the utmost seriousness; that is the nature of life (Ecclesiastes 3:11). But, as Sister Samuelson reminds us, there are times for humor and laughter as well. When the time comes and you are on the verge of yelling or crying, consider that this might be a time for laughing instead.
Discover more of what Sharon G. Samuelson has to say about laughing through life in “Shall I Laugh or Shall I Cry.”
Source: BYU Speeches
—Kjanela Fawcett, Latter-day Saint Insights
FEATURE IMAGE BY 2PHOTO POTS
Find more insights
Read and watch Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s talk about finding happiness in “Happiness, Your Heritage.”
Take a further look at your three choices—mad, sad, and glad—in this Latter-day Saint Insights article.