If we don't laugh, we'll cry

Sometimes when it feels like we’re taking one punch after another, we can only shake our head and smile. It’s a tiny fork-in-the-road moment where we have a choice to either laugh about the absurdity of it all, or cry.

I find myself using the expression “if we don’t laugh, we’ll cry” often when things just go back to back to back… and then the WiFi doesn’t work! 🤣 When you think about it, laughing it off is actually a resilience skill.

Humour can be a form of defiance. It helps us look at a difficult moment and say, ”Well, this is ridiculous,” instead of immediately collapsing into frustration, panic, or self-pity. And on days like April Fools Day, I am pleasantly reminded of this. A small prank to drive some laughter, to see the world through a different shade for a tiny moment, to have a little innocent fun with friends or loved ones.

This April Fools, I’m reminded that laughing about the chaos can be one of the healthiest ways to release pressure, reclaim perspective, and stay connected to other people. When we joke, laugh, and find absurdity in hard moments, it feels like a way to stay human when life feels heavy. It’s our way of refusing to let difficulty have the final word.

Humour as proof that we still have perspective

Some days are so ridiculous that laughter becomes a form of emotional triage. I mean, the tension has to go somewhere, so why not out through the madness of a wild laugh, or acknowledgement of this chaotic life?

Humour helps create a sliver of space between us and whatever is bothering us. And in that space, we regain perspective, connection, and breath.

Viktor Frankl understood this, even in the darkest of places like Auschwitz. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, he wrote: “Humour was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation.” He went even further, saying humour can give us “an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.” Those seconds matter. In hard moments, a few seconds of perspective can be the difference between reacting blindly and choosing our response. Because when we get even a sliver of distance from what’s happening, we stop being fully owned by it.

Maya Angelou understood this too. She often spoke about the importance of laughter, including a time where she told a university audience, “Don’t trust people who don’t laugh. I don’t.” For someone with her traumatic past, this was a clear display of her belief in the value of humour. She still made room for laughter because she understood that often laughter is exactly what keeps seriousness from turning into heaviness.

We might assume resilience must look stern. Tight jaw. Stoic face. Push through. Keep grinding. Stay serious. But the strongest leader I ever worked for was one who would keep tense meetings light with silly jokes laced with hope and ambition. Those are the people who can hold the weight of real life and still find a flash of absurdity in it. They can be disappointed and still crack a smile. They acknowledge the mess without becoming the mess.

That’s real skill.

If we don't laugh, we'll cry

Many of us are living with a low hum of pressure right now. Too many tabs open, too many demands, prices too high, too little pause. And when everything feels loud, humour becomes a tiny act of rebellion. A way of saying: this day may be hard, but it will not get all of me.

Without trying to tell everyone how to be funnier in life, here are a couple of ways to leverage the power of humour.

1. Name the absurdity
   When pressure rises, start with finding the ridiculousness of the moment. Maybe it’s the fact that three people have marked something “urgent” within the same five minutes, or that we’re trying to have a serious conversation while our toddler is yelling from the other room and the laptop battery is on 4%. This is purely just to loosen the moment’s grip. And the moment we can see the absurdity, we create a little distance between ourselves and the stress. That distance helps us breathe, reset, and respond with more perspective.

2. Create a ten-second gap
   Before replying to the email, snapping in frustration, or disappearing down the spiral of worst-case scenarios, let’s give ourselves just ten seconds. That’s it. Let the body catch up with the brain. So much of stress is speed (←read that again). We feel something, and then we’re instantly inside the reaction. But a short pause can interrupt that pattern. Even a few seconds of space can help us rise above the moment just enough to choose our next move more wisely.

3. Share the laugh, not just the load
   We are usually quite good at sharing our stress. We vent, we offload, we tell people how busy or tired or fed up we are. But sometimes what we really need is to share a moment of lightness inside of that stress. Send the text to the friend who always gets it. Make the dry comment in the meeting. Let ourselves enjoy the small moment of humour that reminds us that we’re not alone in the madness. Laughter also has a way of reconnecting us to others quickly. It softens tension, builds warmth, and reminds us that we’re all still human underneath all the pressure. Something more important than ever in these days of AI!

Hopefully this serves as a reminder that, even in the workplace, humour isn’t childish, unprofessional, or shallow. In the right form, it’s a mature and deeply useful resilience practice. It helps us interrupt the spiral and offers us perspective. It helps us stay connected to other people instead of disappearing into our own internal weather.

Until next time friends, stay resilient. And don’t forget to laugh a little.

Carré at Resilient Minds

PS - As we wrap up Q1, more and more companies are reaching out to set up resilience sessions for their teams. Resilience is a skill that can reduce stress, build confidence, and keep us all feeling happier and healthier at work and home. Reach out if you’d like to learn more about how I can help you or your team navigate the chaos of Q2.