Bringing more humor and laughter into your life

Laughter is your birthright, a natural part of life that is innate and inborn. Infants begin smiling during the first weeks of life and laugh out loud within months of being born. Even if you did not grow up in a household where laughter was a common sound, you can learn to laugh at any stage of life.
Begin by setting aside special times to seek out humor and laughter, as you might with working out, and build from there. Eventually, you’ll want to incorporate humor and laughter into the fabric of your life, finding it naturally in everything you do.

Here are some ways to start:

• Smile. Smiling is the beginning of laughter. Like laughter, it’s contagious. Pioneers in “laugh therapy,” find it’s possible to laugh without even experiencing a funny event. The same holds for smiling. When you look at someone or see something even mildly pleasing, practice smiling.
• Count your blessings. Literally make a list. The simple act of considering the good things in your life will distance you from negative thoughts that are a barrier to humor and laughter. When in a state of sadness, we have further to travel to get to humor and laughter.
• When you hear laughter, move toward it. Sometimes humor and laughter are private, a shared joke among a small group, but usually not. More often, people are very happy to share something funny because it gives them an opportunity to laugh again and feed off the humor you find in it. When you hear laughter, seek it out and ask, “What’s funny?”
• Spend time with fun, playful people. These are people who laugh easily–both at themselves and at life’s absurdities–and who routinely find the humor in everyday events. Their playful point of view and laughter are contagious.
• Bring humor into conversations. Ask people, “What’s the funniest thing that happened to you today? This week? In your life?”

Man City & United eliminated from the Champions League at the first hurdle.

Manchester United and Manchester City will have to make do with the Europa League for their European adventures this season. Thursday nights beckon. Channel Five rejoice.

 The cold reality is that both teams got what they deserved after six group matches. United for their astonishingly casual approach, City for their naivety in failing to adapt their game in Europe.
Roberto Mancini's side would have been prepared to exit the competition on Wednesday night. Napoli's victory at Villarreal meant that City's impressive 2-0 win over Bayern Munich's second string – courtesy of goals from David Silva and Yaya Toure – was not enough. City finished third in Group A and have blown the chance to make their mark on Europe in their debut Champions League season.
“I think that usually with 10 points teams always go through, 99 per cent of the time,” reflected Mancini in the bowels of the Etihad Stadium. “But in this group, it was not enough. Napoli got one more point than us and deserved to go through.”

There is more than a hint of truth to Mancini's assertion that City would have navigated eir way through a tough group in different circumstances. But his side made key mistakes, especially in the two games against Napoli, a 1-1 draw at home and a 2-1 defeat in Italy.

Against Bayern, City showed why they have one of the most impressive squads on the continent with a performance of complete control over the German giants. The likes of Silva and Sergio Aguero, who have fired City to a five-point lead at the top of the Premier League, deserve to shine alongside the best in Europe.

But Sir Alex will know he made big mistakes himself. After all, he cited “complacency” and “casualness” in United's performances but he set the tone as manager by fielding lineups more suited to League Cup matches. Two weeks ago, after the home draw with Benfica, he walked out of his post-match press conference indignant at the mere suggestion that United were “struggling” in the Champions League. It came back to bite him at St Jakob Park on Wednesday night.

The over-confidence was reflected in the players' displays, and Basel and Benfica took advantage of the defensive confusion caused by the rotation policy to take points from Old Trafford. United conceded eight goals from their six matches, for which they have little excuse despite being hit by injuries to key players.

The Manchester rivals – the top two in the league – will be left to a cycle of Thursday night and Sunday afternoon football as they battle for the title. The sense of disappointment with their European campaigns will be difficult to shake off, whatever is achieved during the rest of the season.
While they will do their best to win the Europa League, Patrice Evra's comments that he is “embarrassed” to be relegated to Europe's second tier reflect the players' apathy towards the competition.
The title race will now become even more bitter and fiercely contested as the only marquee prize available for both clubs. At least one of the teams appears doomed to domestic and European failure this season – but which will it be?

The Truth about LOVE

• If you find yourself in love with someone who does not love you, be gentle with yourself. There is nothing wrong with you. Love just didn’t choose to rest in the other person’s heart.
• If you find someone else in love with you and you don’t love him, feel honored that love came and called at your door, but gently refuse the gift you cannot return.
• If you fall in love with another, and he falls in love with you, and then love chooses to leave, do not try to reclaim it or to assess blame. Let it go. There is a reason and there is a meaning. You will know in time.

• Remember that you don’t choose love. LOVE CHOOSES YOU. All you can really do is accept it for all its mystery when it comes into your life. Feel the way it fills you to overflowing, then reach out and give it away. Give it back to the person who brought it alive in you. Give it to others who deem poor in spirit. Give it to the world around you in anyway you can. This is where many lovers go wrong. Having been so long without love, they understand love only as a need. They see their hearts as empty places that will be filled by love, and they begin to look at love as something that flows to them rather than from them. Remember this, and keep it to your heart. Love has its own time, its own seasons, and its own reason for coming and going. You cannot bribe it or coerce it, or reason it into staying. You can only embrace it when it arrives and give it away when it comes to you. But if it chooses to leave from your heart or from the heart of your lover, there is nothing you can do and there is nothing you should do. 
• Love always had been and always will be a mystery. Be glad that it came to live for a moment in your life. If you keep your heart open it will come again.