Laughter Is The Best Medicine
By Jerry Aragon

Exaggeration; hyperbole; irony; and delivery, are a few of the important tools of humor. I wrote the two pieces below, to show that humor is under all our noses, if we just stop; look, and listen! In the two pieces, I'll show you how exaggeration is used.

STOP: Stop and smell the roses! If there were 48 hours in a day, there would still not be enough time to do all the things we all have to do. We live in a fast-paced society, and you MUST slow it down, and it will be a healthy move, and you will get more ideas for your projects, etc.

LOOK: Pay attention to the details around you, even if it is just for a second or two. An orange traffic barrel over there; a hot-air balloon in the sky; an ant in the garden, etc. Example: When I keyed these articles for my website, I keyed the word, "Copyright" quite often. So, the obvious question was: is there anything funny about the word "Copyright?" I thought so. In the southern United States, the word "Copyright" is pronounced, Copyrat.

LISTEN: Be a good listener! Everyone will have their opinions as to why and how Bill Gates (Microsoft) is so successful and so wealthy as such a young age. But, none of us really know except Bill Gates himself. My guess is that one of the reasons Bill Gates is so successful is that he is a very good listener. He has always said that he likes to surround himself with smart and creative people. Ideas cannot be copyrighted, and he has LISTENED to the people with the great ideas from all those people who surround him...and the rest is history! He and Paul Allen could not have put the Microsoft giant together all by themselves at such a young age without help! And, that help came in the form of ideas from very smart and creative people. If you're going to get ideas, it's important that you LISTEN!

Exaggeration is one of the most important tools in the humor profession. The first is a true story about my wife and the use of coupons...and I just added a little "sugar" to try to make it funny.