Friends that make us laugh.

I have a friend that I haven't seen in a while. Her name is Jamie and she is one of, if not my funniest friend. I could go into all the ways that she made me laugh but this is the gist of it. While working together if she made a big embarrassing mistake she would immediately come over and say "You'll never guess what I just did." The self deprecating humor she used made us all laugh along with her. Everyone loved her all the more for the way she made herself look even more ridiculous, mostly because she was so funny and adorable. She would magnify the usually small incident until she had us all crying and holding our sides. She was my manager at an apartment community and boy did we need her attitude. Not that she couldn't chew you out for something when need be but you could always depend on her to laugh about it later, or make fun of you about it in a teasing way. I learned from her how to make fun of myself. I think I was pretty uptight before that. I am a sensitive person so anything anyone ever said I took to heart. Heaven help me if I ever did something stupid in front of someone. I was so worried about looking foolish that it kept me from doing so many exciting things in my life. I know that I am not alone and I probably know why I am like this. But I won't go into that now. That may be an issue for the doctors couch.
But once I heard Jamie and her take on her own silly abashments, I really started to lighten up. If I do something stupid, I get over the embarrassment by thinking of how that must of looked to another person. Or if not that then I think about embellishing it as Jamie did to make it funny. Once you hear the laughter that your blunder causes you can't help but forget whether your face is red. Also there is comic timing. Wikipedia says "This is the use of rhythm and tempo to enhance comedy and humor. A beat is a pause taken for the purposes of comic timing, often to allow the audience time to recognize the joke and react, or to heighten the suspense before delivery of the expected punch line." If you would like to read more about timing go here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_timing. . You can learn to use timing to make your listeners laugh along with you if you want to get that funny. Jamie definately has a natural talent for this and some people are just naturally funny. I believe I have a gift for laughter but before it certainly was not when I would embarrass myself. Now I recognize doing something stupid is a part of life. Then I make fun of it. Come on, just laugh about it. Now isn't that much better!