Improv your Mind

I went to the vet with my two dogs, Tanzen and Zeus, today. Just an annual check-up, their vaccine boosters, the yearly thermometer up the booty.

Zeus is my rescue dog. I adopted him from a kill shelter. I saved him at the very last second. He was going to be put down for biting people and had become extremely food aggressive. When I took him home to meet his new brother Tanzen, I was very nervous. Zeus was severely underweight and extremely scared of everything.

Until I looked him in the eyes, spoke soothingly to him, and pet his bony head. Then everything he had gone through in his tragic life was forgotten. He jumped on my lap and kissed my face...aggressively kissed my face like he still does to this day. No grudge. A model of mindfulness. He was in the moment and open to the new experience and whatever the future dared to bring.

I trained Zeus out of his food aggression. He still moans and growls when he plays, but he's my slightly neurotic rescue pup, so I let it slide. 

We had never been to this new vet. We moved this summer and just hadn't needed to go to the animal doctor. So Zeus was very nervous and curious about the new office. Tanzen didn't care. He never cares. He's kind of like Rihanna in that sense.

I told the vet she may need to muzzle Zeus just to be safe. He's a good boy, but sometimes he gets scared of new experiences. "Especially when you get close to his rear quarters," was my exact quote.

So she muzzled him, and Zeus started getting increasingly more freaked out. By the time the thermometer went into his booty he was in full on panic mode, even with me standing in front of him whispering sweet nothings into his giant dumbo ears.

After the exam, the vet removed the muzzle and gave him a treat. I was nervous that Zeus was amped up enough to try to snap at the vet, so I started to get between her and  Zeus. Then the vet said, "It's okay. He just wants more treats." 

And she was right. Zeus had turned on a dime. He went from panic mode to "this treat machine is my new best friend" in seconds. It's nice to know that my boys will have a good association with their new vet, but it's even nicer to be reminded by my neurotic pup how to operate in a more moment to moment capacity. Yeah, I might be overwhelmed with my to-do list or the holiday crowds, but can I leave myself open to being able to turn on a dime and change, open to the next experience?

I've been thinking a lot about empathy lately. Reading about it. Mulling it over. Trying hard to practice it a little more.

I teach high schoolers in a New York City public school now. I didn't go to a New York City public school, didn't grow up in the Bronx, can never fully understand what these kids' lives are like. But I can listen, respect their stories, respond to their realities as they tell them to me. I can empathize.

I always hear people say things like, "You never know what happened to someone on any given day. Maybe they were short with you because someone they love died or they broke up with their spouse," or whatever. People are trying to take a shortcut to empathy-land by excusing rude behavior, and I think that's okay. Whatever gets you to empathy-land.

But I always find myself thinking, "When people I love have died, when I've separated from someone I love, I wasn't rude to people." Well, that's not empathy is it? That's just one experience, and of course I responded differently than other people. That's why that particular excuse-empathy-shortcut thing doesn't work for me though.

I have to gather more info, ask more questions, get to know someone better than just assuming their family is dying off and they keep getting divorced every time I see them. 

I ask if they're okay. How they're feeling. What's going on? What their dreams are, their goals, their favorite things. I can't really empathize with someone until I learn more about their shoes. Stealing them and walking in them for an afternoon just doesn't cut it for me.

So next time you find yourself being judgy and trying to self-correct by mentally killing off someone's loved ones, ask them a question. Get to know them. 

If you're truly living moment to moment dreams can change. Otherwise we'd all be firefighters and princesses wouldn't we?

I wanted to be a doctor when I was in junior high and high school. I volunteered at the hospital every weekend and joined the future doctors of America club, whatever it was called. And then all that hard work and dedication led me to something else, to acting. And it took a long time and lots of processing to figure out that being a doctor wasn't my dream. I was just doing it to make my dad love me, to make him proud of me, to make him notice.

No one told me dream changes can happen your whole life. 

Priorities change. Values change. The people around us change, the casts of characters rotate. And sometimes we're left wondering why we struggled so hard for applause or money or approval or love from strangers. Suddenly (though it'd been a long time coming) we find those aims empty, unfulfilling, not worth the fight.

And we owe it to ourselves to stay in the moment, change as we should, bend like a blade of grass in a wind storm, go where we know we should.

We owe it to ourselves to be flexible and shift where we're destined to tread. 

Last week Tina Fey hosted Saturday Night Live. During her intro she introduced the entire new cast...all six of them and made them be her gold-hot-pantsed back-up dancers. She could have made it all about her. I mean, she is a bona fide film and TV star by now. But she didn't. She followed an improv rule as old as time...or at least as old as improv (let's say in its 50s) and made everyone around her, her scene partners who the world had yet to meet, look good.

And in turn, she looked good. By spreading around the jokes and air time, Tina had one of the more successful shows. It's what SNL is based on, what makes it work, teamwork. It's not a stand-up comedy show...who wants to watch that?

So I got to thinking about how I can make people around me look good...you know, just like Tina. Here's what I came up with:

Saying thank you to people is a great way to make them look better. It means you admit they are doing something right...plus it's super easy to say thank you. Less than a second's worth of work on your part.

Saying please is similarly hot looking for the person you've just been polite to. It means you think they have lots of cool things to do with their time, so you'd better  be polite to try to get some of that precious time of theirs.

Complimenting people is a literal way to make them look good. You just will it into existence. Maybe no one knew she was wearing a nice sweater...until you said so.

Let them speak. When you interrupt someone it means you don't think they're saying cool things. Saying cool things is a sign that someone is awesome more generally. So let them speak.

Add onto their brilliance. If someone has an idea add onto it instead of saying no to it. "Let's work during Christmas!" Hmmmm, you might wanna wring their neck, but "Working from home for an hour during the week of Christmas!!!!" makes your clueless co-worker look way better than just saying what's really on your mind.

Share the focus. Are you killing it at a dinner party? Saying all the right things? You'll look even cooler by sharing the wealth. Nothing makes you look awesomer than keeping us wanting more with a coy, "enough about me..."

Listen listen listen. Really one of the best ways to make someone look good (and thereby look good yourself) is to listen to other people. Really listen. I've been on dates where I contributed no information about myself. I just let them do the talking and I listened my little heart out. And they always wanted a second date. I looked great not by talking but by listening to their talking. I'm not saying this is the right way to conduct a date (those people never got second dates), but I am saying listening makes the listened-to party look totally rad.

And there you have it. Ways to make yourself look awesome by making other people look awesome. 

I'm reading a book right now that's blowing my mind. "The Smartest Kids in the World" by Amanda Ripley is all about global education systems: which ones teach our kids critical thinking and which don't do a whole lot of anything. Some fascinating tidbits are sticking with me that relate to parenting and teaching:

Reading everyday to very young children improves their later education, putting them a full school year ahead of their non-read-to peers.

Many states in the US have incredibly low teacher-training bars. Accepted teacher trainer classes have a lower average ACT score than the average score of anyone taking the test.

Being extremely controlling and involved in high schooler's schooling hurts their scores.

Talking to kids about current events and asking them about their day in a truly interested way helps them more than volunteering in PTA or for their sports. Significantly more.

Finland is at the top in teaching their kids critical thinking. They got to the top by making teaching a rigorous and respected career. Only the brightest third of the country can teach and it takes someone 6 years of specialized training to do so.

So far the take-away seems to be to talk to our kids and make them critically discuss the world around them. The other big take-away is that the US needs to revamp its teacher training. A lot.