YES, AND

This morning I had some quiet time to sit and finish reading a wonderful book,  “No Happy Endings” by Nora McInerny.  I don’t know if the same is true for you, but recently I’ve had trouble reading….which is so unusual for me because I LOVE to read.  But over the past few months, as everything has been so upside down and weird, I’ve just had trouble concentrating long enough to read as much as I usually do.  So, I decided I wanted to really focus on this book and finish it, and not add it to the stack of wonderful, but only partially read, books that sits next to my new home office desk.  (really, it’s a table from Sam’s Club that I’ve fashioned into an “office space” in my living room)  

And I learned something new….actually I remembered something that I think I knew before, but it still felt new this morning.  Did you know that the first rule of improv is “yes”, followed by “and”?  I’ve never been an improv actor, but that bit of information feels familiar to me, so I trust that it’s true.  In improv, “yes” is acceptance of what is being tossed to you by your fellow improvian (is that a word….it is now, for these purposes).  You don’t have to like what you’ve been tossed, and it might not be how you would have scripted the scene, but to keep the improv going you accept the toss.  

“And” is where the good stuff happens…”and” is the land of opportunity, it takes what IS, and reimagines what COULD BE, not by throwing the “but” into to the mix, but instead by expanding the “IS”.  Nora writes “but makes our hearts and possibilities so much smaller than they are. And is where it’s at.”  I think she is so right on!  

We are in a weird improv right now….we are being tossed things daily that we might not have expected and may not like.  It isn’t how we would script it.  Additionally, we may be tossed things we didn’t expect but are amazed by.  We have a choice in each situation to decide whether we say “yes, and”……or not.  

Something that popped into my head this morning as I was reading….something really interesting…..”improve” starts with “improv”.