Geloforecasting: Predicting the Future of “Laughter and Humor” as Therapeutic Allies

Do you have a crystal ball? How’s your intuition these days? Your foresight? How are you at forecasting and predicting? How about imagining, hoping and dreaming?

The basic training of Certified Laughter Leaders emphasizes the importance of being ‘possibility thinkers’. But, whether or not you are ‘certified’, as we come to the close of another calendar year, many of us who love laughter and humor will reflect on the past year and resolve for the one coming up. I thought it might be fun to invite all readers of this blog to ponder some pipe dreams and possibilities around our theme.

‘Pipe dreams’ is a noun phrase that typically means a fanciful or impossible plan or hope. However, I’m thinking of Normans Cousins’ idea that, “Progress is possible only when people believe in possibilities of growth and change.” When enumerating the many ways and reasons that he believed human life is precious, he included, “because we can continue to create in ways we have never created before. We can do the impossible.”

Norman Cousins

Think about the theme of this blog: Laughter and Humor Are Therapeutic Allies. What will that look like in five years? Or, ten years? Or???

I am inviting you to join me in dreaming about the future of what we might loosely refer to as touching lives with laughter;  your personal practice, and our practice together.

What might 'laughter' look like in 2014, 2019, 2024, or beyond?

We call our mutual interest “laughter and humor”, but we know that, collectively and individually, we are about more than that.

If you joined up with World Laughter Tour or any of the myriad related interest groups, you bought a ticket to jump aboard a moving train because you thought you knew and liked where it was going. Is your vision the same as it was when you started or has it changed? If so, how has it changed? Have you changed? How?

Let’s see if we can start a wide-ranging brainstorm of where “laughter and humor” might be going. Call it a dream, or a plan, or a vision, a conversation, or a hope. Whatever word or phrase works for you to conjure an idea or as many ideas as you like.

These Rules of Brainstorming will apply:

Anyone who reads this blog may contribute any ideas you have as they come to mind.

All of the ideas will be archived.

In order to allow us to generate as many ideas as possible, there must be no fear of criticism.  These ideas will NOT be discussed, rated, debated, evaluated, or judged until such time, if ever, that we decide to prioritize or otherwise rate them, for example, for implementation. Evaluative comments will not be forwarded. We are merely inputting ideas for each other to consider.

“Positive Piggy-backing”, or adding onto the ideas of others is OK (in fact, it is encouraged), but not put-downs.

Repetition is OK. Dreaming is OK. Conjecture is OK. Hoping is OK. Wishing is OK. Hunches are OK.

 

"Wild" or "outrageous" or "off-the-wall" and even “what if” ideas are acceptable (they just may spark other ideas that lead to more hopes and dreams).

Periods of silence are OK. This look to the future may go on for a long time, with anyone jumping in whenever they have an idea.

 

Flights of fancy are acceptable.

 

Looking back and looking ahead what possibilities do you see?

 

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