When I first saw the video of Candace Payne donning a Chewbacca mask, I thought to myself, this is unreal.
80M views in one day.
136 Million views to date.
What was it that made everybody on the planet watch this woman, who just walked out of a Coles and put on a Chewbacca mask just to have fun?
Just a regular woman.
She's got kids.
She bought a novelty mask to have some fun with her family.
She recorded it because she was having fun.
She started laughing.
She was literally laughing out loud.
There was no LOL there.
It was real laughter, belly laughter, heartfelt laughter, laughter that heals, laughter that makes you feel wonderful. I watched it several times.
I thought to myself, this is what's really missing in the world.
Real laughter.
Instead of laughing nowadays, we LOL.
We text words to each other. We constantly just text words.
We react to those words and we type LOL.
I've never witnessed somebody having a text conversation with someone else and start laughing out loud.
As a matter of fact, I've seen millions of people text. Not one of them ever laughed like Candace Payne with a Chewbacca mask on.
There was no LOL. People are no longer laughing out loud. They're no longer screaming their heads off with laughter, enjoying life so much.
The simple things in life, the things that really make us connect to each other.
This is one of the most beautiful things I ever watched because it was an honest moment of a woman being a child again.
It was a woman having fun on a regular day.
She didn't care what people thought. As a matter of fact, I seriously doubt that she even imagined half the world would watch her don a Chewbacca mask and laugh out loud.
We have a lesson here that we need to learn. The lesson is all about having fun again.
When was the last time you put on a mask and laughed? When was the last time you crawled on all fours and played horsey with your kids?
When was the last time you, as an adult, actually went out on a date and laughed, and had fun?
You see, as adults, we've just been so programmed to be serious.
Everything needs to be serious.
We need to connect and talk about life, and how evolved we are, and our jobs.
We need to talk about our jobs, the money we make, the places we've been, the things we're going to do, and the things we're working on as adults. That's what we need to do as adults.
As adults, it's all about having serious conversations, worrying about the future, talking about things we need to accomplish. When was the last time you really laughed out loud for real?
When was the last time you had a moment like Candace, and you put on a mask and just allowed yourself to laugh and have fun?
That's why so many people are watching this video. As each minute passes, probably another 100,000 people are watching it. Why? Because as a society, we don't laugh like that. We don't don novelty masks like she did. Today, I think we should all put on a Chewbacca mask and just laugh our day away. Do something silly. Do something stupid. Do something crazy and unleash. Let your inner child out.
Laughter. It's always been the best medicine. Put some of that laughter out there today. And if you have the chance, say thank you to this wonderful woman in a Chewbacca mask who is reminding us of the simple flavors in life and how life has so many magical moments that don't cost time or much money.
Go out and do this experiment today, drive around and while you're out there, look around. Look at all the people. Do you see anybody laughing hysterically? Do you see anybody really having a good time? Take a look around because the majority of people you see are on their phones texting somebody. Take a look at that.
Thank you, Candace Payne for waking people up. Instead of watching a video or texting somebody, we all need to actually just laugh out loud.