In everyone's life there are ups and downs, days when they are happy and others when they are sad or upset. Everyone has moments where they appreciate it for the rest of their lives, and others that bring nightmares. However life treats you good and sometimes bad, everyone wants to live a happy life. In the fiction "The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor" by Sherman Alexie, Jimmy, a character in the story, faces difficult situations in life. To cope with and survive life's tragedies and difficult situations, some people use humor and pretend to have the life they never had. First, everyone faces difficulties in life, some are greater than others. The difficulties you face in life could be, for example, illness. Alexie uses humor Humor was an antiseptic that cleaned the deepest personal wounds.” Jimmy said (208). Throughout Alexie's story many jokes were used as effective humor as it made people laugh "Well, I told her that the doctor showed me my x-rays and that my favorite tumor was about the size of a baseball... " (204) Jimmy said jokingly about the tragedy of his illness and his impending death. Dr. Gill Greengross, a psychologist and evolutionary anthropologist at the University of New Mexico, said “humor can help people cope with tragedy.” So humor is effective and a great way to deal with the situation. Alexie uses pretense as a strategy to satisfy his imagination and hide his pain, for example, “And look at the children…And they have your eyes.” (203) Jimmy said pretending to have the perfect family. Jimmy also pretends to have a healthy relationship with his wife, after coming out of an argument between them he returns “Didn't you miss me? I've been gone so long and it's nice to be back home. Where I belong." (203). Furthermore, people pretend to be something they are not to feel comfortable with others, for example in Alexie's narrative Jimmy and Norman pretended to share a cigarette to feel comfortable l 'with each other "and they shared a cigarette. I should say we both pretended to share a cigarette since neither of us smoked and wanted to have this much more in common." people pretend to be something they are not to please themselves, to hide pain, and to feel comfortable