Today's Comedy Around the World travels to Canada--almost.  My French friend Corinne was studying at York University outside Toronto.  We decided we'd meet in Buffalo, and drive together to meet our other friend Darren in Jersey City. 

Corinne had rented a car, and when I asked if she had directions to New Jersey she assured me she did.  I expected that the map would have streets, highways, or at least a road or two.  Instead, she had a map of the United States.  And she was driving. 

The bigger picture in humor is when we can make our friends and family laugh.  We have a shared background, so we don't need to do a whole lot of explaining about the jokes.  Everyone gets the joke.  In multicultural speak, that's considered "low context".  We don't need to explain ourselves. 

But when we are giving a speech, doing a comedy show, or talking to people who don't know us, we need to be "high context".  We need to provide details, we need to get to the heart of the situation or characters.  We can make 'em laugh, but we have to be a bit more deliberate.  We can't just do the funny face that everyone at the Thanksgiving table recognizes (and if this is your normal face, you will still need to explain that to a room-ful of strangers). 

Humor perspective allows us to see the bigger picture as well as the interconnected (and funny) parts within that picture.  Either way you do it, there is always a way to, "Get Your SHINE Together!" today.