Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you. ~ Langston Hughes

Recently I heard a story on NPR about a Gallup Poll survey that related some unsurprising, but really depressing facts. It seems that while 2020 was a year that showed people were incredibly anxious and sad, it seems that 2021 was even worse. Including some of the highest rates of worry ever recorded in the survey. Now this makes sense to me, the end of 2020 wasn’t magical. It’s not like the calendar turning a page miraculous made COVID and all of it’s impacts go away. In fact we got another COVID spike in January of 2021. But I think the bigger deal was things just didn’t stop. After an incredibly tough year, we just shifted into another year of many of the same things. Political polarization, supply chain disruptions and inflation all just kept coming.

So it’s like all of us never got a break, or downtime, it’s like the trauma of 2020 has never let up. The part of the story that really impacted me was when they relayed that one of the findings was that in 2021 people smiled and laughed less. So, as the Minister of Happiness, it feels like part of what I should be doing is to provide a laugh for you. So tonight, a couple of cartoons and a pledge to provide some additional laughs each week as we move forward.

Laughing is so important to your well-being, laughing relieves tension, improves your mood, exercises face and stomach muscles and long-term even has benefits for your immune system. So we all need to laugh more, even if it’s done purposefully. So let’s laugh and have better days my friends. ~ Rev Kane