why see more misfortune in the event than good fortune in your ability to bear it?

Greetings dearest friends. This will be short and to the point today because….I have COVID! I noticed a dry cough Sunday night with no other symptoms. I did an at home test on Monday afternoon (which my wife enjoyed sticking the test up my nose a little too much). The cough and some congestion symptoms were improving until Wednesday at dinner when I couldn’t really taste it. Later that night I had a fever of 100.9. Got tested on Thursday and it was positive. My children are thrilled because they don’t have to go to school until after Christmas break, while I am quarantined off in the basement. Thus, my wife killing me for getting COVID poses a much more significant risk to my life at this point than COVID as she is alone in childcare duties. All kidding aside, I am feeling well and am thankful for how supportive she has been.

Well, there are a whole bunch of things scheduled for next week and I think I should be good to go since Employee Health told me I can return to work next Wednesday. I am doing morning report for the Internal Medicine residents, unrelated to improv directly. Then at noon, we have the first meeting of UNMC Improv student interest group. A very exciting development and I look forward to helping the students use skills from improv to help them connect with patients and each other. Then Thursday is ER Grand Rounds on the benefits improv has provided me and how it can help you! Then Friday, meeting to discuss doing a two-workshop series for our palliative care team. Friday night is the show for our Intro the Improv for Healthcare professionals. They are doing such a great job; I am going to miss our last practice on Monday while in quarantine. Each class has been so fun and it’s been such a pleasure to watch them improve so much.

All this COVID pandemic stuff has provided ample opportunity to scale up the adaptability skills improv has provided me. I have been very fortunate that no one I am very close to has been severely affected. Both my parents had it this fall and thankfully recovered. So, I don’t know that I would have the same thoughts if that was not the case. I still think the principles are true, but just way more difficult to implement. Certainly not fair to suggest others implement the principles as they struggle with the situations the pandemic has brought. Through the practice of improv, I am forced to go on stage and accept the reality as it is presented to me, then to make choices of how to proceed from there. If I do not accept the reality as presented by my scene partners and just add to whatever I wish the reality was, the scene will make no sense. That feeling is one that is difficult to describe, when you make a choice that doesn’t make sense on stage, and you are left standing up there. The audience doesn’t like it either. As you practice adaptability in real life, that is the essential principle. Deal with reality as it is rather than how you wish it to be. Say Yes, and… to your situation. Accept what is before you and add your contribution to that. There is a great discussion of this in the book Improv Wisdom by Patricia Ryan Madson, among several tips on using improv skills to improve your life. If I have a fever next Wednesday, I need to acknowledge the reality that I probably shouldn’t attend some of the events I mentioned above and I should work to figure out how I can contribute to the events without being there. The improv stage forces me to use all the clues available to figure out what the situation is. Amidst the pandemic and the uncertainty of the times, that has been a helpful skill and will be called upon heavily this week when I am stuck in my basement away from my family. I hope everyone and their family stays as healthy as can be

“It is my bad luck that this has happened to me.' No, you should rather say: 'It is my good luck that, although this has happened to me, I can bear it without pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearful of the future.' Because such a thing could have happened to any man, but not every man could have borne it without pain. So why see more misfortune in the event than good fortune in your ability to bear it?”