A fishing enthusiast was relaxing by a lake when he was approached by a nosy local. After a moment's thought, the local asked, "Hey there! You fishing?"

The angler gave him a sideways glance and replied, "Nope."

"Then what are you doin' with the fishing pole?" asked the local.

"Oh, I just like to drown worms."

I've drown a few worms in my time. Sometimes, life does not give us what we want. We face situations in which our expectations are unmet. When things don't work out exactly right, our first impulse usually is to gnash our teeth or ask to see the manager. If we can stop for a moment, step back, and take a creative look at the situation, we might be able to find something funny in even the most frustrating situation. As Mahatma Gandhi once said: "If I had no sense of humor, I should long ago have committed suicide."

That's a pretty strong statement, but it points to an important truth. Laughter is a coping mechanism. It helps us to survive. Joan Rivers, the funny lady who has had to struggle at times to find anything funny in her life, says: "Laughter sometimes comes out of very private tears." This is true. Very few of the famous comedians of our time had extremely comfortable, happy childhoods. Somehow, they gained the insight, wisdom, and grace to laugh in spite of the state of their lives. As George Santayana has said, "There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval."

To enjoy that interval, we need to step outside of ourselves and see our lives as important, but not serious. God gave us the ability to endure any hardship. Sometimes we endure it with tears and heartbreak; sometimes we endure it with numbness and the passage of time. The wisest course of all is to have a chuckle along the way.