You have got to laugh or cry

Like any veteran flier of Southwest Airlines, I was ready. Exactly 24 hours before my flight, I checked in. If you tarry a moment longer, you'll be condemned to the dreaded "C" group, mooing last onto a plane with only middle seats left in the back where you get to cuddle with the forearms and shoulders of strangers for a couple of hours and then lose a day and a half trying to exit the airplane.

But then my server took a powder. And by the time all was well for me in cyberspace, I was left staring at a C-4 boarding assignment.

For $40, Southwest is more than happy to fix that for you. So, in a snit of entitlement, I bit the bullet. Paid the man. Now my ticket said "A-2."

Then I got off the train at the wrong terminal. Why? Because I have the brain of a hamster, that's why. Seriously. Sat for an hour, writing a column in the wrong terminal.

I barely made my flight. I was the last passenger on. I boarded, duly chagrined and ready to take my just punishment, only to find that the one remaining seat was in the second-row window (I love window seats) next to an elderly couple who flirted and caressed and chatted warmly the whole way home. (I want one of those when I'm 80 years old!)

The moral of this story? That was the most absurd $40 I've ever spent. And I'm absurd. And life is absurd.

Whoever first said "You gotta laugh or cry" was speaking truth greater than he or she could have imagined.

To begin with, it's literally true. Tears and laughter are biologically almost identical. Both make water come out of your eyes. Both involve the same rhythmic movement of the diaphragm, followed by huge gulps of air. And both bathe the brain in endorphins, soothing the nervous system. A sublime quiet, a serenity proceeds from both laughing and crying. You feel better.

The author of this tasty figure of speech was also surely noticing the very core of the human condition: mystery, absurdity and pathos. Life is so capricious. So brief. So fraught with dilemma and contradiction. So much bigger and more mysterious than any human brain can wrap itself around. So filled with surprises both ecstatic and devastating. We convince ourselves we know and we decide and we choose and we're in charge of ever so much more than is actually ours to affect.

You gotta laugh or cry. Pick one. Both will take you to the same place: humble surrender, rest, and the willingness to start again.

I've decided to trying laughing more often.

Like, in marriage. Because, of the many things that life partners bring to the table to share, you can be sure each will bring his or her particular brand of absurdity. Habits of reactivity, speech patterns (words, tone, volume, pace), quirks about the vital importance of toilet paper installation, etc., that, when viewed objectively range from odd to confounding to aggravating.

And it's never going to change. Not really.

You can lament (cry), or you can fight and argue and "be right," … or you can laugh. That is, choose a default position of bemusement, delight, irony and satire. You can learn to have a lot of fun "playing" with your mate's absurdities of type and temperament. And he or she with yours.

(I'm thinking that's how you get to be that elderly couple on the airplane.)

Like, in child rearing. Maybe especially with adolescents. Of course those youngins are going to push and pull with you, square off and defy you, toxify the air around you with moods, intrude upon you with drama, posture with narcissism and entitlement, experiment with hiding, deceiving and even sometimes lying, chafe hard against the bit of the necessary bridle and regularly withdraw their affection. Stop reacting and start having some fun getting smarter! More strategic. Stronger.

Of course you love them. And they love you. And, heavens, do they need you.

Like, in life. Of course you're mortal. Of course you are "in bondage to decay" (The Epistle to the Hebrews). It's not just our bodies that must eventually decline and die, but also our illusions, our ego, and our well-laid plans. Everyone dies with things unfinished. Some hopes and dreams unrealized.

No one is a big deal. No one knows why things work out the way they do.

There is a powerful liberation in embracing life as life is. We stop hammering against it and simply live it.

— Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His column appears on Mondays. Contact him at 702-227-4165 or skalas@reviewjournal.com.