The Grasshopper dug into his old stand-up act and came up with this:

“Vibrant Life Requires Improv.”

Want to improve your life? Apply improv.

The common reaction that we have to real life (Reality) gets us the same thing we got before – a stale, stuck-in-the-mud existence.

Vibrant life requires learning a lesson from the theatrical practice called improv.

The basic premise of improv is that you take what is offered to you and run with it. Improv takes you in a new direction – one that may never be arrived at if you dig in and rail against the offering. The vibrancy of life comes to a screeching halt when you refuse what it offered to you.

“A Rabbi and a Priest walk into a bar” is what the improvisational comedian is offered. He/She doesn’t respond, “No, they shouldn’t go into a bar”; they offer the next sequence of events – something that advances the story forward. Vibrancy requires forward movement.

The minute you refuse what life has offered you, you are stuck in a stale routine. Notice I didn’t say that you have to like what reality has offered, but for vibrant life to return, it’s necessary to take what reality has dropped in your lap and offer a forward response.

It seems obvious to say that moving backwards delays any forward movement, but that’s exactly the direction we head when we violate the rules of improv.

We have become experts in justifying our staleness. That practice won’t deliver any laughs, only the sad reality that the joke’s on us if we refuse to move forward.

This observation is not meant to trivialize or deny what has happened to you; it’s to shine a light on the only way forward – Improv.

You will stay right where you are, perhaps drowning your sorrows with the Rabbi and Priest, until you find life’s vibrant salvation – Improv.

All the best,

John