I think I am going to die

Ok, here is another blog entry. It is really easy to think about doing this and it’s even easier to think of reasons to not sit down to actually write. Well, this will go out on a Friday afternoon like an email saying you lost your vacation hours due to setbacks with corporate. Hopefully, this content will be positive and lead to pleasant thoughts before the weekend. No one is taking your vacation away from you here. First, we will do a wrap up of this week’s improv events, then briefly what comes next week with some current thoughts.

It has been pretty entertaining since last I wrote. I had a show on Friday night with the people I have been doing improv with the longest and it was the first show that felt pre-pandemic. The crowd was fun and there several scenes that I was not in that I caught myself watching and laughing with them. After one particularly hilarious scene, I heard an audience member say to her friend “I am going to die”. Now we have had a show where EMS was called in the middle of it, so I am sensitive to audience members’ health issues, but we were both laughing and no major health concerns developed that night. I had a meeting with medical students from Creighton and UNMC about starting official clubs at both of these vaulted institutions of higher learning. It was fun kicking around fun ideas to spread the joys of improv in healthcare. I also convinced one of them to join the level 1 class I am teaching at The Backline. The class continues on brilliantly. They are a really fun group of people, and each seem to have some natural improv skills to build upon. Thursday was the Listening workshop for faculty development. That is going really great too. Thursday was a nice mix of people that had been to previous workshops and some new faces. The Listening workshop was one of the most illuminating for me to develop and I actually went up to my wife and apologized to her before the first time I did the workshop. When I was younger, I think I was a good listener, not great, but pretty good. I think years of education and opportunities to be expected to give my opinion, my listening skills atrophied as I attempted to find my place as a physician. So, the workshop is personal to me as a way to help people improve their listening skills to meaningfully improve their lives and relationships. I am still not the world’s best listener but whatever I am now would have been infinitely worse had it not been for improv letting me practice listening skills and feeling the consequences immediately if I didn’t concentrate on my listening. Thanks improv! Tonight, I have a show at The Backline that I am really looking forward to as well.

Next week, I have Intro to Improv class on Monday and Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving table will be filled with members of my large family and will be a great opportunity to practice the skills of listening, empathy, and adaptability. My family provided me with my sense of humor and now influence how I think about what is funny. I used to go out with them when I was back in Omaha for the holidays and we would laugh and laugh, to the point of tears. I think our shared history makes it easy to set up jokes so that almost everything one of us will say ends up being a punch line. That sense of connection exists between us already and it’s easy to play the game of making each other laugh. I have found the same thing exists when I am with my longtime friends. In improv, we come out on stage and have to find that connection but once we do, we just play the game of making each other laugh. Whether it’s laughing to the point of tears with your family and friends or hearing someone say, “I think I am going to die” in the audience, the ability to make a connection through laughter is one of the best things I can think of. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving