Who else here lives for humor? For me, jokes give my heart a reason to beat and my mind a reason to rejoice! Comedy has recovered me from many sorrows that had held me down in the past. Comedy television shows stood by my side when no one else would or could. Now, you all know I love God, and I give Him credit for helping me, but I’m pretty sure God would agree with me on this: The world needs laughter. And, in that way, the world needs comedy.
I like to make others laugh. In fact, I get so excited about my attempts that I’m usually laughing at my own jokes before anyone else is. Humor has my heart, so much so that it’s even become a love language of mine. As a girl, I used to constantly tease those I had a crush on, a trait I must have learned from my family, who teased one another frequently.
As I grew up, teasing became a tool I relied on. Unfortunately, I eventually learned that this multi-purpose tool can help or harm. As a teenager, I read something about this in a church magazine once, but at the time I just snickered at their opposition of certain comedic attempts, such as sarcasm. Sure, I could see how it might hurt others if taken the wrong way, but come on. Was it so bad?
Well, let’s just say that not all jokes are good. I think many of us can think of a few jest we’ve made in the past that make us cringe and regret our “witty” whim. I’ve spent time trying to assess the humor that harms and the humor that helps, and I think it comes down to this: Jokes gesturing with a passive aggressive sword will inevitably sink deep into and wound the unarmed heart.
I could talk about the differences between an armed heart and unarmed heart. It would certainly help improve the situation for those who are more emotionally vulnerable. Even so, we often only know if our heart is armed and cannot know if another heart is protected or not. So, I think it’s best to address how to yield the weapon instead, and perhaps we’ll talk about improving emotional vulnerability another day.
Avoiding the use of these wounding war weapons might take more effort than expected. Human nature often forgets others, and it’s not common to pause before every witty remark and think, I wonder if this will hurt so and so’s feelings. Some people even make witmarks just to purposefully put another person down! The trend to do this is escalating and that creates confusion about what’s okay to say.
We have a lot to overcome to find the balance between comedy and kindness. Over the years, I put effort into sorting through the things I say and kicking out the “I’m kidding” moments that harmed, not helped. As I did this, I tried to formulate new jokes that didn’t put another person as the punch line—and let me just pause to look at that phrase there: Putting someone. In line. To get punched. Yikes.
Okay, okay. Moving on. Some people might wonder if the effort to do this was necessary. Maybe we don’t notice any negative effects of negative humor because we leave most our friends before those byproducts silently take place. We don’t stay with them 24/7 and observe their internal and external reactions. However, I’ve lived with my husband on a nearly 24/7 basis, and that time together opened my eyes to this issue and the necessity of trying to overcome it.
Josh and I both love to tease each other. Many of our conversations take place in joke format. Yet, sometimes, our jokes start to increase in seriousness. Someone thinks the other person meant what they said, and sometimes the other person did mean what their passive-aggressive statement expressed. Undoubtedly, any negative humor moments result in one or both of us hurting.
The more I watched us whimper or whine because of another person’s witmark, the more I noticed a major problem in the pattern. Some of our jokes made the other person look intentionally bad. Take that out and replace it with something that made them look good, or didn’t even include them, and that helped.
This became the difference between joking about someone doing something stupid and joking about someone doing something silly, but endearing. Or the difference between repeating that same endearing joke constantly and changing it to a new joke that doesn’t involve them, to ensure that what was once good doesn’t eventually go bad (like guitar strings that were never tuned but still plucked over and over again).
If we begin to think of others as we tease or kid around, people will enjoy our presence more and our relationships will strengthen because of this selflessness. Not to mention, as you really start to find the balance between comedy and kindness, it’s likely that others will laugh more sincerely and more joyfully because you’ve lifted their spirits up, not put them down. So, watch out for the witmarks you use, and in this way, we can make comedy a happy place for everyone.
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