People have different opinions about life. Life is what you make it. Life is hard. Life is too short. Life is like a box of chocolates. Life sucks and then you die. I'm probably more of the "life is what you make it" crowd.

For those of us who are old enough to be able to look back on our youth with some perspective and see the transition toward adulthood, we will not see a straight and level path from there to here. No, we will see mountains and valleys, some taller and some deeper than others, but they all lead to where we find ourselves today.

Sometimes we may find ourselves wondering how in the heck we survived at all, when we remember how awful it was during those dark days, weeks, months, and even years. How indeed.

I have had my share of darkness, which started with an early divorce by my parents to a childhood filled with physical, emotional, and mental abuse at the hands of an alcoholic stepdad and indifferent mother and ten years of military service most of which contained the darkest periods of my life when I felt trapped and alone.

Do you know what got me through it all? My sense of humor. While most of the time I do try and find the silly silver lining to the cloud, there are times when I delved deeply into gallows humor as the dark depths of my soul were plumbed. It wasn't easy, but I laughed.

There are many people in the world today suffering due to the bad economy or who have bad jobs or who are in bad relationships. No matter how dark the situation, you need to find a way to laugh because that's sometimes all you can do.