People say laughter is the best medicine and that it can cure any sadness or pain in your life even if it’s just a second. Some would call it a miracle worker. So I decided to see for myself how big of an impact joy and laughter have in our lives. Over the past few weeks I’ve been writing in what I call my “laugh journal.” Every night for thirty days I would take a couple of minutes to write in my journal about something funny that had happened that day. I hoped that this challenge would open my eyes to all the things in my life that make me happy and laugh, and I hoped it would make me more grateful and appreciative of them. I wanted to be aware and make sure that I would no longer take them for granted.

Here are the results from my 30 day challenge:

I began the challenge on March 12th. Every night for about 10 days I was pretty good about taking time out of my day to do this. But then one night I forgot to write an entry. The next night I was too tired to catch up so I skipped that day too. After awhile all the missed entries began to catch up and before I knew it, on April 11th, the challenge was over. My activities and responsibilities had caught up to me and at the end of the night I was just too tired to write anything. I was lazy for the most part, and chose not to record anything from that day. Now I have always been a big procrastinator, so this was pretty expected. But looking back on my journal now, the entries I do have make me laugh- really hard!

Here is a copy of one of them:

March 17th

Today my mom took my brother and I to see “A Wrinkle In Time” at the AMC theater in Lakewood. I bought ICEE’S for my brother and I at the concession stand and when I ordered I asked for two regular ICEE’S and my mom goes: “Oooo! Regular? What flavor is that?” Dane and I just started laughing and told her it was the size of the drink not the flavor and she started laughing too because she knew she had just said the dumbest thing in the world.

Most of my entries just make me laugh because I’m really immature, but looking back through them, I realized how important they truly are. Most of my entries involve something funny one of my friends said or something a family member said. I can see that it wasn’t just what they said that made me laugh, but they made me laugh. Without the people I love and care about the most, I don’t think I could ever have this much laughter or happiness in my life! I am very grateful for them and I’m glad I took the time out of my day to write those entries because they were so worth going back over and reading and re-reading! It was actually quite relaxing to reflect on my day right before bed for the short time period I did it for, but my busy schedule—added on to my laziness—just couldn’t keep up with it. If you think you have room in your day to do a little self reflection and find something as simple as what made you laugh, then I encourage you to start your own “laugh journal.” After all, who needs an apple to keep the doctor away when you could just have a good laugh!