If you’re like me, humor has lifted my spirits recently. I’ve laughed at some COVID-related jokes and memes people have shared with me. I’ve really enjoyed the videos of our pets wishing that we’d go back to work so they can have the house to themselves again. Thank you to those that have lifted my spirits.

But it’s tricky. I’ve also been hurting for people everywhere whose lives have been turned upside-down. When so many are suffering, is it OK to smile or take joy in a joke related to the cause of so much pain?

As a leader, and you are a leader, using humor in the right way and time can positively influence others. But it can also seem callous, insensitive and out of touch for those in pain or unable to receive it. You have to make that judgment.

Humor -- bringing it and responding to it -- is one of our personal freedoms. Several years ago I read a classic book on our ability to choose how we respond in the face of a dire situation. Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is about the real experience of navigating and surviving the unimaginable horrors of a Nazi concentration camp. Frankl writes:

We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

With that in mind, appropriately choosing to bring lightness to our situation -- such as with humor -- can help all of us get through. 

With that in mind, consider sharing this joke with your friends. It’ll likely get both a smile and a groan:

A Coronavirus walks into a bar.

The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve viruses here!”

The coronavirus replies, “Well, you’re not a very good host!”