Humor reveals how differently the same situation can be framed.

A joke works because it takes the same set of facts everyone in the room already has and sets them in a frame nobody had considered. That is why laughter often arrives with a small shock of recognition. It is evidence that the situation was never fixed in meaning, only fixed in your habit of reading it one way.

When something in your week feels heavy and immovable, try describing it the way a friend with a sharp sense of humor would. You are not trying to make it funny for its own sake, you are testing whether your reading of it is the only available one. Often the lighter frame is not less true, just less rehearsed.