In the world of improvisational comedy, a scene begins when someone, such as an audience member, suggests a situation – say, newlyweds watching a baseball game.
The improv comedians take off from there, like this:
Husband: I can’t believe we got tickets to the seventh game of the World Series!
Wife: What an exciting game! Can you believe – tied in the bottom of the ninth?
Husband: And look who’s coming up to bat: Queen Elizabeth!
So far, so good. Now, the Wife might respond like this:
Wife: Lucky for the Red Sox – she’s batting over .300 this year!
The actor playing the Wife just demonstrated the first rule of improv, called “Yes, and …”. When a new, and possibly absurb situation is presented, you’re supposed to say yes, and … expand on the new reality, embracing it without question.
What if, on the other hand, Wife had responded this way:
Wife: That’s absurd! The Queen is far too old to play baseball, and besides, she’s British!
It would have stopped the scene cold, with no laughs to be found anywhere.
Saying “Yes, and …” to a Crisis
The first rule of improv applies to real-life crises, too.
We can reject the new reality as absurd and deny it. We can push back against it, feeling like things “shouldn’t” have been this way, asserting that it was not “supposed” to happen. We can endlessly compare what is to what we think should have been.
Or we can say “Yes, and …” to new realities.
The current coronavirus crisis is fundamentally changing all our lives for a bit. I can continue to fight against this story – say, bemoaning the fact that our family vacation to Morocco was cancelled, or telling myself this is a “nightmare” that can’t possibly be happening to me.
Or, I can say “Yes, and…” to the coronavirus crisis. It’s up to me to figure out what comes after those ellipses. Maybe:
- “Yes, we’re in the time of coronavirus … and it’s spring so I have time to focus on adding running miles.”
- “Yes, we’re in the time of coronavirus … and it’s teaching us all valuable lessons about protecting the environment is coronavirus … and I’ve learned about how much privilege I have.”
- “Yes, there is coronavirus … and it gives me an opportunity to learn what I really need, and what I merely desire – but don’t need.”
The day Denver and Boulder issued “shelter at home” advisories, I decided to try this strategy myself. After reflecting for a few moments on whether to panic, I decided that this type of mental energy was a waste of time, and instead went out for a long run. It was a beautiful day, with a few white clouds and a breeze blowing down from the foothills. Last week’s snow still dusted the front range, casting the Indian Peaks in slabs of angular white against the cobalt sky.
Instead of my typical run around the Open Sky trail, I took a set of backroads with less foot traffic. I passed the beautiful farmland of West County, breathing in air as clean as any I can remember, and gradually moved my emotional dial from “panic” to “joy”.
If we believe that the big world, just as it is, is our friend, we find it holds a sort of wisdom for us. We need only be willing to listen to it. Sometimes it takes us to difficult places where we’d rather not be, sometimes to places we never think we’ll have the strength to get through.
But the world, if we trust it, reveals something amazing: we are always in the right place, at the right time.
We just need to remember that life itself is a game of improv, and follow its most important rule.
