“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I want to make people laugh.

Not a mean spirited laughing-at-someone laugh, but the laughter found in the joy of life. I want my friends and family to laugh, the milk-coming-out-of-your-nose type laugh, when I tell them a funny story or joke. To make a new Scout laugh with glee when he brags about how easy it was to light a fire with one match- something he previously didn't think was humanly possible. I want to make my children laugh when I teach them how to blow underwater bubbles in the pool. To make work colleagues laugh when we look back in disbelief at how we used to treat illness and believe cancer was fatal. I wish to hear laughter in my classroom when I remind students of how serious and pretentious they were on their oh-so-important first day of university. I want to make my wife laugh as we lazily watch the sunset from a newly climbed mountain top.

I want to make others laugh so that I can laugh with them. I can best show myself and others that life is beautiful by sharing the gifts of laughter and love.

— Ian McLean