My family has always been a laid-back, humorous bunch. As far back as I can remember, smiling and laughing has always been an integral part of our lifestyle, and in turn has made us a very close-knit and intimate family. One of the earliest examples of this is relayed completely from the stories of my parents because I was too young to remember. When I was little and first learning to walk, I wanted to explore just like every other toddler. But, with this exploration came many errors and accidents.

Usually, when a child will mildly hurt themselves such as a bump on the head or a scraped knee, a parent's first reaction is to rush to the child and console him. This instinctively makes the kid cry, which, as callous as it sounds, is very annoying. At any rate, my parents never would rush to me and make me cry, but would rather laugh at me and in turn make me laugh at the situation. And that's really the whole moral of this story: if we can't laugh at ourselves, we can't really, truly laugh at anything because once someone realizes the humor in the mundane, he can appreciate more than just some slapstick Three Stooges type comedy.

Now, I don't want to make my parents seem like awful people who laugh at their child when he gets hurt because they were in fact the opposite. They loved and cared for me more than anything in the world. The things they laughed at would be small things that, and I know we've all seen it before, makes a kid kind of look around for someone to rush over to them and then begin crying. It's a game toddlers play with adults to evoke sympathy. I know I probably sound like a cold-hearted guy but if you baby a baby for too long, it will become too dependent.

Bottom line is, my parents helped me by making light of light situations and to this day it is reflected in my laid-back style and positive scope on the world.