Recently, I learned what “disagree and commit” truly means, a concept everyone struggles with a lot. Committing to an idea that you disagree with is difficult. Or, let’s say it was, until today.
The idea is that you may disagree with whatever life throws at you. You accept it as it is, but you have to commit to yourself. I learned this at the most unexpected place (to me): in an improv comedy course.
Improvisational theatre is magical. When you’re on the stage (or taking an improv course like me), it teaches you life skills that you already knew but had forgotten. When you learn a concept from the improv world, you rarely say, “Whoa! How would I have known?” You often say, “Yeah, it makes sense.” When you leave the class, you’re surprised by how little you learned, but also amazed by how much you re-learned and the different perspective you have gained.
In improv, you commit to whatever your scene partner throws at you or whatever weird thing your brain pops up, so you make yourself a fool on the stage. You “yes-and” ANY idea. When your scene partner calls you a monkey, you become one. You don’t reject and say “no, I’m a horse” (unless you’re a delusional monkey who thinks that it’s a horse) just because you were planning to become a horse in your head.
The audience’s expectation builds up instantly. All eyes are on you to see how you become a monkey, not a horse. At that moment, your brain plays games with you. All the plans you have made about what kind of horse you will be, its mood and behaviour are gone. Your soul disagrees with the monkey, but you commit to it and become a monkey that people were waiting for from the moment the monkey word was heard.
Life is the same. As the famous quote says:
“Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans.”
So, you must commit to what happens in life, as you can’t control most of it. You don’t force your own way into life, but life forces upon you. The more you fight with reality, the more difficult your life becomes.
In one scene in our class, someone came up with a character who was a rich douchebag. The improv game we were learning was about copying others and increasing the level of absurdity in each phrase (yes-and’ing everything), so we became five rich douchebags, and the scene built into a poor-people-blaming scene.
Although we all committed to becoming douchebags on the stage, one person couldn’t commit to shaming poor people and found themselves halfway in, halfway out. The person was committed to the character but not to the play; they struggled on the stage. Their struggling acting, which denied the narrative yet tried to adapt it to the douchebag character, was visible to everyone, including the audience. The more they tried to fight against their heart and soul, the more difficult their acting became.
At first, the douchebag characters started out innocent. We all built on each other’s phrases and eventually began mocking with the bad taste of cheap beer. (Essentially, we were mocking the rich douchebags by showing how douchebag they are.) The more the struggling person tried to participate, the more isolated they became; the phrases they came up with didn’t fit. Even physically, they moved to the corner of the stage and unconsciously separated themselves from the four of us. Their body was rejecting the idea.
At that point, the teacher paused the scene and asked the person to commit to themselves—not the narrative—as well as the douchebag character. In a way, they had to yes-and the rich douchebag and yes-and themselves. That was the easy way out, but they couldn’t see it until someone else pointed it out. When we continued, the person said, “I must admit: from time to time, I drink a cheap beer because it’s actually damn tasty.”
That admittance made the scene much, much better. We desperately needed a way to get out of the constant blaming of cheap beer, and that phrase changed the course to a much funnier direction. During the rest of the play, we all smiled and ended with a big laugh (the best ending in improv comedy).
When someone calls you a douchebag or a monkey, and you have to commit to it, but it’s up to you how you play it. Your choices depend on how you feel about yourself and how you view the situation. What matters is that you commit to whatever comes and find an angle within yourself that you can commit to. AND, fully commit to both.
Let’s say something happened in your life, and you’re sad. Even if your scene partner calls you a monkey (or your boss shares some difficult news), you still must commit to yourself and perhaps play a sad monkey who really needs a cheer up. You have the power to transform the monkey into whatever you want (if your company laid off 20% of its people and you were not affected, you can disagree with the decision and still turn that into an opportunity). When you try playing the happiest monkey in the world while deep down you are sad for something you can’t get out of your head, the audience (and your teammates and boss) will see right through it.
When you try to do something conflicting yourself, everyone around you clearly sees it, even though you think they don’t. Much like on stage, you’ll make your life difficult because you’re trying to become something your soul and body can’t accept. Everyone will see your struggle, but will have a hard time naming it. The moment you accept the reality and “yes-and” to yourself is the moment everyone, including you, will see the most amazing side of you (or the best play that everything fits together well).
Within the spontaneous and random things happening every day, you constantly choose how to react. It’s your choices that turn the day into a good or a bad one, not what life throws at you. Every day, you become the person of your choice.
That choice is sometimes yours, sometimes somebody else’s. You don’t always get to decide. At work, it might be a new responsibility or a role change you have no choice but to shoulder. The escape from random events popping up in the most unexpected times is yes-and’ing them and finding something for yourself that you can yes-and, too.
If you can’t yes-and yourself and only yes-and whatever is thrown at you, there is no way that thing will make you happy. When your body and soul reject it, you can turn to yourself and commit to whatever is within you. But not halfway in and halfway out. You have to be all the way in to committing yourself or all the way out and leave the stage.
While still playing the (life) game, you can commit to anything, because in life (and in improv), you write the play as you go; there is no script. Creativity and commitment are two things that move the scene and life forward.
Good to Great
I share up to three things I found interesting, sorted from good to great.
Good: I’m not rich. BUT I am aware of my privileges. Although I most likely won’t understand what it feels like to be poor, I try to put myself in the shoes of those less fortunate. This showed so much that I couldn’t even think.
Better: You may know from the last newsletter that I’m a big fan of physical magazines, especially editorial or journalistic ones. I bought the latest issue (32nd) of Electra magazine on my way back from travel and read the piece called “AI As A Measurement Of Human Intelligence” by Matteo Pasquinelli. As it starts with this quote: “Civilisation advances by extending the number of important operations we can perform without thinking of them,” you know it’s a good article. That’s how I see AI affecting us. Really, really good article.
Great: I always appreciate well-written hard truths. This one is about how to make a living as an artist. You don’t need to be an artist to read the article. I urge you to read it, especially if you’re NOT an artist. Learning the harsh realities rather than relying on Instagram’s or TikTok’s algorithms, which display only the good side of things, can turn your (and maybe your kids’) life around.
Do you have suggestions for great things? Comment below (or reply to this post via email).
