One
of my favorite days this year was when we had two members of Senseless Acts of
Comedy come in. I have only seen the improv show twice, but each time I am
falling out of my seat in laughter. I am amazed about how my peers can be so
funny and creative at the drop of a hat. I have been to a few professional
improv shows, and the shows SAC puts on were way better than any of those
shows. Although that probably has a lot to do with the members of SAC being my
age and using references only TCU students would understand, I still believe
the students are much funnier than many professionals. The fact that both of
the students had different paths of developing their skills fascinated me. They
said that anyone can be funny and partake in improv, but it takes the specific ability
of letting go of fears and reservations to be good at improv. I believe every
word of that. In middle school, I took an improv class. I would like you to
imagine me at the peak of my awkward stage getting up on a stage in front of
classmates I was trying to impress and doing improv. It was not pretty. I hated
every second of that class. I dreaded being called on to perform and I would
stand there shaking as I tried to come up with the most generic scenes so I
would not make a complete fool of myself. Sort of to how Michael Scott always
commits to being a double agent with a gun during his improv class in The Office,
I always committed to petting or walking a dog because everyone likes dogs.
Although I have not performed improv sense the dreadful
years of middle school, I would like to believe I would be much better at
improv today. It took me pretty much all of high school and parts of freshman
year to feel fully comfortable in my skin and to let go of constantly trying not to make myself look ridiculous. Even
though I am nowhere near as insecure as I was seven years ago, I still struggle
with insecurities every day. I truly admire people like the two SAC students and
how they can just let go of their insecurities on stage. That is a skill that
takes dedication to develop. Throughout this year we have talked about benefits
of humor and I think an important one is the ability to laugh at yourself. People
who are so kept up in maintaining an appearance cannot let go and embrace their
true selves. For those out there who transitioned from a period of insecurity
to an era of unwavering self-assurance, is being confident not the most freeing
feeling? We all must learn at one point to just sit down and laugh at natural
human stupidity. The first time I learned to laugh at myself, I realized that I
am a human, just like every other human on this earth. I also discovered that I
do a lot of good things too because I stopped getting so caught up on all of my
mistakes. I know we all sort of hated on the superiority theory in class, and
for the most part I am not a fan of the theory, but the theory holds some
truth. When we laugh at others for silly errors, we must learn to laugh at
ourselves as well. I laugh at a guy slipping on ice in a Speedo not only
because I am happy that is not me, but also because I realize that I could
probably do something just as idiotic. We all have our little flaws and instead
of letting them hold us back, we should just laugh and move on. Finding my
humor shaped who I am today and allowed me to be a much more confident person.
Now if only I could turn back time, and brave the middle school improv class
today.
