Cultivating Levity in Life

During the summer of my junior year in college, I was working as a front desk clerk at a fancy hotel on Nantucket Island, off the coast of Massachusetts. One of the guests, who was well-known for his dour, negative, and quick-to-anger temperament, approached me with his family in tow and heatedly barked out, “Call me a cab right now!” After a brief pause, I said, “OK, you’re a cab!” which was then followed by a longer-than-normal period of silence. The man’s wife then let out a high-pitched cackle and shouted, “I’ve been waiting for someone to say that to him forever!”

After another uncomfortably long moment of silence, the man started to chuckle and said to me, “You know, I really deserved that!” While I didn’t realize it then, humor and levity can go a long way in defusing tense and anxious moments. Having worked with Middle School students for many decades, I have realized that a well-timed comment that evokes a sense of humor and light-heartedness can occasionally lessen the weight of the stress and social awkwardness that many a Middle School student has felt during these trying years. Even as adults, living in these times of political, environmental, and societal upheaval, finding humor can be that “sugar” that helps the often bitter “medicine” go down a bit more smoothly.

We all know the old adage, “laughter is the best medicine.” Unsurprisingly, this is often, literally, the truth in helping us deal with the trying and unpredictable moments we face on a daily basis. Many studies have concluded that humor and laughter can often increase feelings of optimism and overall well-being. A 2011 article in the Journal of Positive Psychology, “Promoting Emotional Well-Being Through the Use of Humor,” asserts that humor is “believed to assist in improving emotional well-being by increasing self-efficacy, positive thinking, optimism, and perceptions of control, while decreasing negative thinking, perceptions of stress, depression, anxiety and stress.”

In our Middle School, we know and embrace this truth and intentionally find ways to have humor as part of our day. During classes, teachers will often create lessons that incorporate group games and activities that are meant to be enjoyable and fun! Passing in the hallways, I often notice students engaged in silly group dances, which I sometimes join, much to the amusement (and often embarrassment) of others. Without question, I feel that our Middle School community is a fun place to be, where students and faculty have opportunities to laugh and enjoy the day.

This isn’t to say that we need to find humor in each and every moment. There are distinctive elements of our curriculum that are far from being hilarious and demand a serious and sensitive approach. Students will encounter in our program topics such as persecution, ostracism, racism, oppression, and genocide, to name but a few of the difficult and serious themes that are important for our students to wrestle with. Along with this, students are aware of many of the less-than comical issues that dominate the current news cycle. This is where our teachers need to find the right tone, balance, and approach that respectfully introduces students to these disturbing and unsettling issues.

From time-to-time, I return to Carolyn Todd’s Nov. 4, 2022, New York Times article, “When Everything Is Heavy, a Touch of Humor Can Help,” that focuses on her understanding of the power that levity can bring to serious and stressful situations. Todd notes that “Humor and levity are related, but the terms aren’t interchangeable… [and] much of the related research falls under the umbrella of levity … a sense of lightness, as well as a posture of not taking everything so seriously.” Levity, the ability to lighten up and to take things a bit less seriously, can have truly healthy and restorative effects.

Todd cites the research of Emiliana Simons-Thomas, science director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkley, on the power of levity: “Levity is our primary vehicle for restoring a relaxed state … It helps create a buffer and escape from the mental and physical stress that underpins so much of our suffering.” Whether I knew it or not, when I called the man in the hotel a “cab,” my comment did lighten the moment, much like letting air out of a balloon.

Quite often, many of the texts that our students read that deal with powerful and serious issues are laced with moments of levity. Read any Shakespearean tragedy, and you will find such moments of “lightening up” in the most ominous of situations. I always feel that Mercutio’s utterance to Romeo after he has been fatally stabbed by Tybalt in Act III of “Romeo and Juliet” to be a true moment of levity through a wonderful play on words:

“No, tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as
a church door, but tis enough, twill serve. Ask for
me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.”

And of course, Mercutio soon becomes a man, dead and buried in his grave.

When seventh grade students read Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” they encounter the horrors of racism and the brutalities that groups of like-minded white men can inflict on black citizens. When Mr. Cunningham and his fellow mob of white citizens have gathered at the jail in an attempt to capture Tom Robinson and take the law into their own hands, it is 9-year-old Scout Finch whose innocent and curious words to Mr. Cunningham defuse the palpable tension and send this mob of racist men home, temporarily saving Tom’s life:

“‘Don’t you remember me, Mr. Cunningham? I’m Jean Louise Finch. You brought us some
hickory nuts one time, remember?’ I began to sense the futility one feels when
unacknowledged by a chance acquaintance. ‘I go to school with Walter,’ I began again.
‘He’s your boy, ain’t he? Ain’t he, sir?’ Mr. Cunningham was moved to a faint nod. He did
know me, after all. ‘He’s in my grade,’ I said, ‘and he does right well. He’s a good boy,’ I
added, ‘a real nice boy. We brought him home for dinner one time. Maybe he told you about
me, I beat him up one time but he was real nice about it. Tell him hey for me, won’t you?’”

With her simple questions and remarks, Scout defuses this tense situation by connecting with Mr. Cunningham on a most personal level, reminding him of his own humanity.

In reflecting on Todd’s NYT article, I do feel that finding ways to introduce humor and levity into our lives, whether as Middle Schoolers or adults, is central to living a healthier life. Todd offers six suggestions as to how we can cultivate levity in our lives. While I won’t explicate each of these suggestions, I do love her first suggestion: “Look for things that are just the tiniest bit amusing.”

Indeed, there are funny things happening all around us, if we would only look for them: “When your angry kid stomps into the room, does she kind of resemble a tiny, drunk dictator? When you pass a dog park, can you appreciate how the entire affair seems like a canine singles bar?” Go ahead and give it a try, especially when your Middle Schooler is trying on that outfit that makes you grimace with pain and embarrassment. Or, you can just call them a cab …