On a recent flight I experienced the most wonderful thing.  It was early morning and I hadn’t finished my Starbucks coffee yet.  I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone – even though the lady next to me tried to engage in a conversation.

I just fell asleep.  For whatever reason, I got up right as they were serving drinks so I decided to wake up and get a drink.  I was pretty tired, but fought sleep in order to adjust to the time difference.

After the drink service, the movies started so I decided to watch the movie.  During the movie, a funny scene came on.  I wasn’t really watching the screen as I was playing a game on my ipod as I listened to the movie.  It was so funny that I laughed out loud, and although I didn’t want to engage in conversation with the lady that sat next to me, I looked at her to share in the laughter.

It struck me that when we laugh, we have this innate and automatic response to want to share that with someone – even if I didn’t even want to talk to her.

It can still be fun and funny to laugh out loud, but even if you don’t know a single soul on the plane, we still need to share the laughter.  It’s automatic.

Why is that?