A few years ago I attended my friend Nick’s 40th birthday party.
As part of the celebration, he hired an improv comic, and we all had to participate in learning improv comedy.
(I just felt the collective shudder of all the introverts reading this newsletter).
We started throwing out fun scenarios and scenes to participate in, and we learned about the cardinal rule of improvisation: “Yes and.”
Two simple words, and the basis for all improvisational comedy:
When someone comes up with a scene, sentence or situation, the ONLY acceptable answer is: “yes and”
- Yes: Acceptance! I accept and acknowledge that whatever the situation is, no matter how absurd, is true.
- And: build! Just like in a tennis match, after your improv partner hits the ball to you, your job is to hit it back! Building on the situation or scene.
For example, if your improv partner says, “I’m a space pirate,” your response might be:
- “Yes, and I’m the space police, you’re under arrest!”
- “Yes, and I’m a first mate looking for a new crew, this is perfect!”
- “Yes, and my name is Captain Hook, welcome to Pirates Anonymous.”
The “yes and” rule is so crucial because there is nothing worse than a bad improv partner!
Kind of like Liam Neeson this short sketch with Ricky Gervais, (I laugh every time):
The yes-and rule for life
As a former overachieving “gifted child” with quite a negative inner critic, I have worked hard to integrate “yes and” into my life.
The “yes” part is built around acceptance, something I have been working on embracing over the past two years.
Check out my previous essays on Acceptance And Wabi Sabi for more.
It’s the “and” part that I’ve been focusing on lately.
Like Dr. Kristen Neff notes in her book Self-compassionlife is complex and that also applies to humans:
“The judgment defines people as bad versus good and attempts to capture their essential nature with simplistic labels.
Discerning wisdom recognizes complexity and ambiguity.”
Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Things are also never as good or bad as our brains think they are.
So despite the voice in our heads that wants to judge everything in black and white, yes-or-no, good-or-bad… We must remember that life is a beautifully complicated mess.
Author F. Scott Fitzgerald once said:
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time and yet retain the ability to function.
For example, you must be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them different.
This is my task for you today.
Is there a part of your life that feels black or white and could use some complexity instead?
Nothing is as simple as it seems.
Life is hard, and change is hard. AND you’re a good person for trying.
Which means there is hope. And hope is the emotion of the warrior.
Please go check that out too Liam Neeson skit.
Don’t mention it.
-Steve
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