Part of my sense of humor is to be able to laugh at anything and anyone, including myself. Even in very difficult situations I just laugh at myself, others, or the incongruities that are happening around me.
I still remember in football when one of our teammates messed up, did something he should not have, and the coach punished everyone except him. We got down and did more pushups than I could count, while the coach had him watch. This was far more painful to him than punishing just him or even punishing everyone together; it served to shame him.
I still do not know why I did this, but I broke out in shrill laughter in the middle of the drill. Everyone looked at me like I was insane, but I think I was just relieving the pressure, the tense environment we were caught in, the ironic situation we were in: the person responsible was the only one unpunished.
And I still laugh, bitterly many times. I laughed when I felt my ambitions were falling apart. Whenever I do something I later regret, I look back and laugh at myself, not with satisfaction, nor with joy really, just kind of a hollow, tense "well crap" laugh, and I slowly and bitterly smile at the difficulty of the situation.
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