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Consciously looking for reasons to laugh is often the thing that just makes it happen. The key is to put into place invitations for laughter.  Look for humor everywhere – on signs, in people’s behavior, in the silly mistakes you make. Or, ignore all the bad news and look for a few laughs as you read your daily newspaper. Believe me, you’ll find them.Here are a few real examples:Publicize your business absolutely free! Send $6.Marijuana Issue Sent To Joint Committee.Open House – Body Shapers Toning Salon. Free coffee & donuts.Air Head Fired.Kids Make Nutritious Snacks.Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery. Hundreds Dead.Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge.Teacher Strikes Idle Kids.Exercise Equipment: Queen size mattress & box spring – $175.Free Puppies: 1/2 cocker spaniel -1/2 sneaky neighbor’s dog.For Sale: Complete 45-volume set of Encyclopedia Britannica. $1,000.00 or best offer. No longer needed. Got married last weekend. Wife knows everything. And then there’s this classic:Now – go find your own and have a good laugh!

Most of us are familiar with the concept of Emotional Intelligence.  You know, the evaluation system made popular by researchers Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer involving the ability to monitor – and presumably adjust – not only our own feelings and emotions but those of others.One result of their work is that many believe EI demonstrates how competencies such as self-confidence, initiative and rapport with others contribute to the bottom line of any work organization. But what about our MOOD and the impact it has on those around us? According to a recent article in the Harvard Business review, the thing that most influences a company’s bottom-line performance is not emotional intelligence but the mood of its own leaders.  They call it ‘mood contagion’ and I’m sure we’ve all encountered it.  Perhaps we’ve even set it off or had a hand in spreading it. When it’s good – it’s very, very good.  When it’s bad – it’s toxic.Think about it.

In the best-seller Tuesdays with Morrie, author Mitch Albom quotes the star professor, “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half asleep even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” Author Anna Quindlen completes the thought, “ Don’t ever confuse the two, your life and your work. The second is only part of the first….It doesn’t matter what you do for a living as long as it makes you feel whole and fulfilled. It doesn’t matter how old you are when it comes to looking for love, your dream or the adventure of being alive… Find your spiritual center, your generosity for others, your compassion for the world. Take nothing for granted. Get committed to things you care deeply about that were chosen for their goodness. Life goes so quickly. Use every bad thing to good advantage. Use every loss for gain. Find the lesson in every day living. Listen. Give back.” In short, find out what really matters to you and live it.

This piece – written by Judith K. Morgan following an in-depth breathing workshop- reveals the magnificent gifts of mindful breathing.THE ART OF BREATHING. We come together – strangers for the most part – to learn to breathe.How absurd!  We’ve been breathing, some of us, for 60     years.Yet as the hours and days pass, we realize we have much    to learn about breathing. And as we are taught these new techniques, we begin torecognize there is more to this than mere science. First it’s Ujjayi breathing, then it’s Bhostrika – a little trickybut not too hard.Then we’re told we’re going to do a Sudrashan Kruja –nothing more than normal breaths but in a rhythmicpattern from slow, to moderate, to fast and back toslow again – a piece of cake – WRONG!

Our instructors skipped telling us this would go on for 30 

minutes-no stopping, no sleeping!

Are you kidding? – they should have said, no passing out!

Well, we were committed, so breathe we did-and sweat,

and ache, and tingle and go numb.

This can’t happen to a body just from breathing!!

But they swore on the altar to Ravi Shankar this was not

dangerous, would cause no harm.

And, indeed, we all survived the experience long enough

to reap the reward of total relaxation–to sleep, to

stop breathing, to leave our bodies, to weep, to return

to the womb, to know the eternal, to become steamed

spinach.

This WAS beyond science!

Moreover, as we contemplated, shared, gazed into brown eyes

and blue, took sustenance together, exposed our egos

and sat in quiet,

Our awareness grew, our prejudices dissolved, our hearts were

opened, our separateness began to blur;

And these who came as strangers, at the end, knew a new truth.

Behind the brown eyes and blue, alike, the color of our souls is the

same–it is the color of God–we really are One.