LET IT OUT

Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and, when he grows up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto the freeway.

What’s so funny about this? This joke is not a pun, it’s not a riddle, a spoonerism or any other form of wordplay. It’s just a simple joke and I think it’s funny. It’s about either controlling or giving in to your emotions. Buddhism talks a lot about being unattached to your emotions and following the middle way. It’s about not over- reacting positively or negatively regardless what our impulses tell us. The Dalai Lama calls this equanimity and it’s a state we should all strive for. The joke talks about child rearing. We are supposed to teach our kids to control their emotions, but we don’t really tell them how. If you don’t have the tools, the skill set, then you become a slave to your own emotions and impulses. In the extreme you get sex addicts, serial killers and drug/alcohol addicts on one hand, while on the other hand you get zombies who can’t feel