By Mike Johnson
God has a sense of humor so you should too.
I mean look around.
Presidential leaders of the greatest nation on earth have included a movie actor, a horndog and an Alzheimer patient.
Governors put tampons in boys’ restrooms.
Mayors kneel to black rioters while they burn their cities.
A hundred years ago, when I was still chained to employment, I found great pleasure grousing about our defective boss with coworkers.
Everyone saw he was a pompous, tyrannical, idiot, except him.
This provided unlimited wisecrack opportunities.
Like when he yelled about people being late to meetings, to the people who had arrived on time, wasting 10 minutes of diatribe that the late people were not there to hear.
We snickered that he must yell at his poor kids for his wife being late with supper.
Or after sharply cutting labor budgets, he asked why store conditions had slipped.
“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” we’d mumble behind his back.
Clearly, he was no Isaac Newton.
Not even Fig Newton.
Shared misery has its own sweet humor.
Especially when you have the perspective to read a room.
As tension builds, a succinct, funny comment is the release valve.
Say the right thing, at the right time, and the room erupts in laughter.
I was often that guy.
But it can also get you fired.
That’s why I kept so many devastating one-liners in my head.
And held an Andy Dufresne grin in a roomful of painful expressions.
The thing about employment (or government) is they might control your actions, but not your mind.
This is why tyrants get the bare minimum from subjects.
Your body may move in the direction they point, but your mind is laughing at your vision of their dismembered limbs flying out the far end of the woodchipper.
Physical compliance may be required.
Mental compliance is not.
Tyrants never understand that.
Which is why they only get half the productivity gotten by good leaders.
And why their subjects ridicule them behind their backs.
The laughs are not worth the pain, but at least they’re a free benefit paid at the tyrant’s expense.
Look around.
There is humor EVERYWHERE.
Cash in on it.
###
More:
With a Good Boss: My Day As President of the United States
###
Back to Mike's Warm, Wealthy Wisdoms
Back to Mike's Website, WorldsBestWriter.com