I know that reading the news these days can be particularly horrifying, yet hard to avoid. With social media we are informed immediately when something tragic happens. Once we receive the initial facts about who slapped who or who invaded who, we then naturally are curious, learn more about the situation, and takes sides. Once we have made our decision about which party is the good one and which is the evil one, we then do more “confirmation bias” research, finding more news and opinions that reinforce our own. This is the normal way of living in the world. Our ego tells us, “If I am right, then someone else must be wrong.” But, as the spiritual book A Course in Miracles asks, “Do you prefer that you be right or happy?” The implication is that we cannot be both. We must choose which is more important to us: holding a grievance or having our inner peace. It is here where improvisation can assist us.
Next time you identify a villain in the world, try the improv game called, “What I Like About that Is…” You can play alone or with a friend. Take the opinion opposite to your own. Then say, “What I like about that is…” and fill in the blank. Find something, no matter how small, that you can like about the opposite point of view. It might seem insignificant, but if you can always practice this game when you are passionately angry about a topic, you may be able to maintain your inner peace, and see the humanity in your enemy. Not an easy game to play sometimes, but necessary if we want to model how to stay unified as one human race, no matter how different we may think and feel at times.