Striving towards Excellence

-Karthik Gurumurthy

Last couple of weeks have been very hectic for me and it looked like life is going to fall apart. Being serious all the time is not a healthy condition. We have had bosses and family members who walked around red-faced and taking themselves far too seriously. Their mindset made them ill-equipped to do anything about the problem themselves.

But where do we start?

Perhaps our best resort is to laugh at ourselves. Remember that time when you did something accidentally funny but were a little embarrassed and hid. Our resort here is for us to be able to laugh at ourselves while recognizing that we are not positioned at earth's core with the rest of the world revolving around us. Sometimes it is my wife Shobana who reminds me of this. Learning to laugh at our circumstances and ourselves helps us keep a balanced view of our personal world. Can you find something funny in some aspect of your life that may be causing you personal difficulty?

Laughter lives best in spontaneity, and its catalyst comes from our interactions with others.

Think about the last time you let rip with your best laugh- when you completely forgot everything and did the most natural thing in the world. It was an awesome experience for me few months back in India when I was attending my brother's wedding. Looking out of the window, I saw a group of impoverished children totally immersed in playing with an old bicycle tyre for what seemed like hours. The smiles never left their faces. Why are some people able to access fun and laughter when they have hundred times the problems we have? Why do some of the most deprived countries in the world produce some of the joyous fulfilled music?

Just think for a moment of some of the benefits of laughing more:

It lowers blood pressure.
It releases endorphins.
It helps keep sense of perspective.