You are not in control.

This is number four out of five elemental truths I try and keep in mind.*

I might like to imagine I am in control, but if I think about all the emails, phone calls which come my way, the flow of conversations I’m involved in, what I’m really doing is trying to bring the best of who I am in response, and to make sense of it within my story, and hopefully help others to do the same within their own stories.  More of an impro-dance.

(Some even believe what we think of as the Self is simply a series of responses to the things around us.)

Keith Johnstone writes, ‘An inexperienced improviser gets annoyed because his partners misunderstand him.’  This person makes  a blind offer: expecting a certain response.  When we “offer” something and the expected response doesn’t materialise we can be upset, or, we can remind ourselves we’re not in control, and perhaps need to go with the flow and see what happens because maybe something more will emerge from the dance, something with flair and joie de vivre.

(*I’ll mention the other four another time, but  these five comprise what a child passing into adulthood might learn within an ancient culture.)