In life, I do believe the book when it states that we need to take ourselves less seriously and see the humor in our everyday activities; enjoy life more. I am a very outgoing and love to see humor in everything except for myself when I make mistakes. I become very hard on myself and need to lighten up a bit. Applying me to the three solutions would be such a bad idea. The first one is about mindless entertainment. I love to watch movies and relax on the couch. One thing about mindless entertainment that I value is self-thought up humor. The more I try to make myself laugh, the better! The second solution is in the view that play is an attitude of mind that may pervade any human activity. I personally think it is really hard for work-a-holics to 'learn' how to play again. Once adults lose it and enter into the big world, bringing the mind back down to the age of a child is hard, but EXTREMLY necessary. The third solution is all about integration. We need to appreciate that joy and pain can be valued and found in the same place. It is okay to experience it positively. In order to experience TRUE joy, we have to devour pain first.
It can be relatively easy for us to see humor in everything else, but when it comes to ourselves we tend to see that humor in a more negative manner. Have you ever heard of the saying that we are our worst critics? I think that really is true. We should lighten up regarding certain situations and not take them so seriously so we don't cause ourselves unnecessary stress. The pain we go through can be lessened if we approach it in a different way and I agree with you that true joy will be experienced when pain is devoured first.
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