Have You Tried Improv?

It’s the first day of April and the first official day of ‘Do Something Different.’

April has 30 days to try doing something different. You can try one thing different and do it for thirty days.

Or you can do thirty different things, one per day. Or any of the variations, of course. But pick fun things! Pick things you want to do or you won’t do them. It’s not 30 days of punishment. It’s 30 days of “Maybe Something Cool will Happen!”

In the Summer of 2008 I tried something different. I was a lawyer at the time and I was writing a book I was sick of writing.  I needed to mix it up creatively so I tried Improv.

Improv was amazing and very therapeutic. But I couldn’t perform skits. I was way too OCD for the spontaneity and social dynamic of Improv. I couldn’t interact on my feet.

But I liked all the laughing so I tried stand up where it was just me and all of my obsessive notes. And I LOVED IT!

Except that I couldn’t keep the late hours. I had a day job and no energy at night. Wah wah wah.

But I was still writing stand up material like a maniac and I had a ton of material already written. So I added some really awful stick figure-ish drawings to the  jokes and started posting them online.  And little-by-little the cartoons got less painful to look at.

And after a few years of posting one cartoon daily, I got syndicated.

All because I tried Improv. And failed.

So today, as the “Do Something Different” title indicates, do something different.

It can be big or small. It doesn’t matter. Sometimes the smallest of changes to our day – a yes, a no, a change in routine – sometime the tiniest alteration make the biggest difference.

So today, for Day #1 of “Do Something Different,” I swapped my Saturday morning news and political commentary habit for Schitt’s Creek.

Now THAT was a good decision. And now I know why people love it. And it was great to laugh and laugh and laugh. Out loud. Because I don’t laugh enough.

So today’s change was GREAT! And will definitely be repeated. I am documenting that!.

What will you do different today? Make it Short, Tall, Venti or Grande, but make it happen.

Game on!

Happy April 1st.

🤎🤎🤎

xoxoxo, d and bella