If you have doubts about someone, lay on a couple of jokes. If he doesn't find anything funny, your radar should be screaming. Then I would say be patient with people who are negative, because they're really having a hard time.
Interpretation
Using humor can be a way to gauge someone's character, especially when they're struggling.
In this quote, Michael J. Fox suggests that humor can be a litmus test for assessing the positivity or negativity of a person's attitude. If someone cannot appreciate jest, it may indicate they are dealing with deeper issues, thus reminding us to exercise patience and understanding towards individuals who may be experiencing tough times.
In practice
During a team building event, to lighten the mood when tensions rise.
I find as long as I acknowledge the truth of something, then that's it. I know what it is and then I can operate. But if I overestimate the downside of something or the challenge of something and I get too obsessed about the difficulty of it, then I don't leave enough room to be open to the upside, the possibility.
My whole life, meeting people is like a blind date, because I feel like they've already seen the video on me.
There are no moments you have frozen in amber. It's moving, it's changing, so appreciate what's good about right now and be ready for what's next.
There's always failure. And there's always disappointment. And there's always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss, and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums.
Certainly people have a lot tougher situations than I've had to deal with. But I will say we are all dying from the moment we are born. This is not just rehearsal.
I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm an activist, I'm a writer and I'm just a student of the world.
People have to start talking to know more about other cultures and to understand each other.
What anger worse or slower to abate then lovers love when it turns to hate.
Be yourself and the right people will love you.
Not much about California, on its own preferred terms, has encouraged its children to see themselves as connected to one another.
If we stop believing in a future, if we stop doing things for something else but start doing them for now, some fundamental things change. Retirement becomes less about how much money you can squirrel away now and much more a matter of participating and contributing to your own community now so that they want to take care of you. … We’re going to move into a world where your retirement will be more secure if you’ve made lots of friends with young people rather than collected lots of dollars.
There's a whole world of people out here whose experiences are not being reflected in the media that they're reading. And that does affect the way we view ourselves... and the people we think we can be.
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