), I don't think of myself as being omniorganized. The best thing about getting older is the realization that there are some things that you can organize and some things that you either can't control, or that aren't worth it or would be spoiled by the effort. If, for example, you have to move an 8-person hot tub to your house (insert smiley face here), it doesn't work to show up and figure it out as you go. You have to prepare: rent a huge flatbed, recruit a posse of manly-men who'd probably rather be doing just about anything else on a rainy Saturday afternoon, arrange a time and place to meet, and prepare some sort of grati-snack to thank them.
On the other hand, if you're cleaning out your closet and you find some dress shirts that your ex-boyfriend left behind to be mended while he was off cheating on you, it's best not to waste time enumerating the pros and cons of returning them versus donating them to the Goodwill or using them to clean up dog doo in the garage, but to just go ahead and slice the arms off with a sharp scissors. It's very satisfying, and if you sew up the bottoms of the sleeves, they make neat little wine bottle bags.
In Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up, Patricia Ryan Madson advocates the sleeve-slicing approach to life--not violence and vengeance, but spontaneous acts of thinking-on-your-feet that prohibit the blocks that arise when we try too hard to arrange the little pieces of our lives too carefully. I read Madson's book recently as a part of my training in improvisational theater and realized her ideas are applicable anywhere, not just on stage.
Throughout this short book, Madson offers numerous examples and strategies for adopting a more improvisational attitude to life. Showing up, paying attention, giving yourself permission to be average, and taking care of others are among the improvisational maxims that she introduces and promotes. My favorite is "make mistakes" since I'm already pretty good at it. "99.9 percent of the time, a mistake is just an unanticipated outcome giving us information. While we may bemoan a blunder, the real question to ask afterward is not, 'How on earth did I do that?' but rather, 'What comes next? What can I make of this?'" I can't think of a happier way to respond.
People often think that improv is about being funny, and while it often ends up being hilarious, the goal of improvisational actors is not to get laughs, but to think fast, forget inhibitions, support others, and most of all, to say yes to what is offered, whether it's on stage, at work, or in our personal lives. "Say yes to everything," Madson writes. "Saying yes is an act of courage and optimism. Accept all offers...when the answer to all questions is yes, you enter a new world, a world of action, possibility, and adventure...Humans long to connect," she writes. "Yes glues us together." And so do hot tubs! Come on over!
1 comment:
Few things make a writer happier than to learn that their book has "hit the mark" with a reader. Thank you so much for your post about my book, Improv Wisdom. I love it that you've found these ideas can sometimes be used in our daily life. Keep on saying Yes!
Patricia Ryan Madson
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