I used to be funny.  When I was in the second grade, I loved to make people laugh, and I was good at it.  Not in an obnoxious, class clown sort of way, just funny to have fun and get those around me to have fun as well. 

Then around the third grade, I’m not sure how it happened, but I crossed over to the dark side.  Somehow I became convinced that the key to success and happiness in life was through hard work and really hitting the books, not silliness.  My priorities changed from fun/funny to serious/studious and my eight year old lighthearted life of frivolity morphed into a Type A life of relentless achievement, pressure, and stress.

Fast forward through graduating ranked fifth in my high school class, receiving a B.S. Degree in Chemistry, and ultimately earning a Ph.D. in organic chemistry.  In all, a lot of intense studying and toiling in a laboratory, and not much fun.  Still, I persevered because a good education was supposed to lead to prosperity.

Fast forward once more through a twenty year career as a research chemist at major pharmaceutical companies.  Again, a lot of hard work, both intellectually and physically, constantly facing, attacking, and usually successfully completing high priority laboratory research projects.  This period truly was the dark side.  Year after year of enormously high stress, management by crisis, ultra urgent deadlines, being verbally berated, and being forced to perform extraneous duties in which I little to no interest.  All for precious little in the way of job recognition or positive reinforcement from my superiors.  Mostly for the paycheck and the personal satisfaction of a job well done.

 In this Type A scientific career I was ultimately rewarded with two job layoffs in six years, the second of one year in duration, still ongoing, and with no end in sight.  After twelve months of being shunned trying to get back into chemistry, dark and dreary though it may be, I finally gave up. 

Then a funny thing happened.  Simply by realizing that I no longer needed to face the day-to-day negativities inherent in the modern pharmaceutical industry, I suddenly began to feel a lot better.  The gloomy, forbidding clouds which engulfed me during that career are finally beginning to lift.

As I’ve contemplated what to pursue for the rest of my working life, I’m encouraged by those memories of the second grade. I need to rejoin the fun/funny side of life, to again think happy thoughts, and to really enjoy the rest of my life.  While I’m sure I won’t become a stand-up comedian on Comedy Central or a TV comic on Saturday Night Live, maybe I can at least make people laugh like I used to.  I’d like to laugh more myself as well.  The time has come to ‘Let the Good Times Roll’ and focus on having fun.  And this is one way I’m gonna do it, by writing.

A man walks into a bar….