Happiness Quote by Linda Ellerbee

Laughter, in Linda Ellerbee's telling, isn't an escape hatch; it's a stance. The image of "stand tall and look into the sun" is almost defiantly physical, the posture of someone refusing to flinch even when the glare hurts. Pairing that with laughter flips the usual script where humor is treated as lightness, distraction, or denial. Ellerbee frames it as a deliberate choice: meet the overwhelming head-on, then answer it with a human sound that says, you don't get to have the last word.

Coming from a journalist, the line carries professional subtext. Reporting is often an exercise in staring at the sun: corruption, tragedy, hypocrisy, the daily drip of bad news. The temptation is either cynicism (everything is a joke) or solemnity (nothing can be joked about). Ellerbee offers a third lane: laughter as a pressure valve that doesn't erase the heat, it helps you survive it without surrendering your dignity. It's not the laugh of someone who hasn't understood the stakes; it's the laugh of someone who has and is still standing.

The "may be" and "I think" soften the claim, a reporterly humility that also makes it more persuasive. She's not preaching a self-help mantra; she's testifying to a practiced coping mechanism. In a culture that often equates bravery with grim endurance, Ellerbee argues that levity can be its own form of resistance: a refusal to let fear, grief, or power dictate the emotional terms of your life.