 Picture this, the curtain goes up to reveal a stage that has two people sitting on it. The stage is in a theater that belongs to the improv group run by the universe. The audience is asked, who are these people? What's the relationship? What news has just passed between them? And the audience yells out, it's doctor impatient and one of them just found out he has cancer. That's sort of the way I felt as an improviser when I was given the news that I had prostate cancer. And of course the last thing you want to do, excuse me, the last thing I wanted to do was accept the offer. And if there's any place that you do not want to go, yes and that was it. However, it occurred to me that I really had no choice. And that if once we make a commitment, not only do we make a commitment to play, essentially we make a commitment to live. So in hindsight, I'm looking back to seeing how my experience as an improviser played out in my undulating, modulating, up and down emotional journey for two years before I had my surgery because one of the options when you have prostate cancer, when I had prostate cancer, was something called watchful waiting. I'm a procrastinator. That was the best news I could have. Yes and you don't have to think about it for a while. Okay, I'll take that. Eventually I did have to think about it and began to make options about do I want radiation? Do I want chemotherapy? Do I want surgery? Want is the word I'm using very loosely. Didn't have many choices. But I had to make a choice. And again, I think that's one of the improv situations is that you get choices. You may not like the choices. Make a damn choice. Keep moving forward. So I began to look around because the other thing that I'm looking back again, this is not a conscious, oh, I'm going to be an improviser with cancer. This is looking back. One of the things I realized was that as an improviser, you're looking to other people always for clues about how to respond. So I became, actually I'd been before, a pretty astute observer of what other people are going at to me in order to respond. So one of the things I learned pretty soon is that once you have a diagnosis of cancer, you're the cancer person. That's the first thing that people respond to. That's the first thing that they think of. I'm going to see Izzy. He's got cancer. So they're not sure exactly what to do. Again, I've been in that same position. And I love people, and I do the same thing, but people don't know what to say. So they say things which relieve some of their pressure and are meant to relieve some of yours. So I learned there's three stages in life. There's youth, adult, and you look good. And I'm thinking you expected the walking dead. And I think that's the fear that we have. How are we going to respond to this? Other things that people say are the really heartfelt, wonderful memes and platitudes that help the other folks help you. So I heard very often there must be a silver lining. Look for the silver lining. You're an optimist. You're a humorist. When I do these programs for cancer caregivers and other caregivers, I originally wanted to call my program Every Silver Lining Has a Dark Cloud. I was talked out of it for marketing purposes. So I tried to look what's the silver lining to getting a cancer diagnosis. I really couldn't find one until I called a friend of mine that I hadn't talked to in a couple of weeks because I'd gotten busy and she was really pissed. Oh, you're calling? I called you four weeks ago. Why didn't you return the call? I left kind of messages. I said, I'm sorry, Alice. I have cancer. She goes, oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. I realized the silver lining of a cancer diagnosis is that you can get away with anything. Driving down the road at 110 miles an hour, cop pulls you over. Hey, do you know how fast you were going? No, I don't because I was just thinking about my cancer diagnosis. Oh, I'm so sorry. Keep going. So there is the silver lining. You know, there is the silver lining. The other thing I noticed is that people don't pronounce things very well, especially when it comes to medical terms. People tend to mix up very often prostrate and prostrate. So very often I was asked how my prostrate cancer was and being a person who likes to respond honestly and openly, I would say it's prostrate, not prostrate. And then someone else would say it and someone else. And I literally 50% of the people that mentioned the word prostrate meant prostate improv comes in except the offer. Somebody says to me, you have prostrate cancer. And I said, yes, I do. And now I can't lie down. Just accept the offer. So the idea became very much about really paying attention to how I was in this situation, how people were towards me in this situation. And my self-talk. And I had learned, and I think one of the aspects of improv that's so beneficial for life, is that it really works on all four areas of well-being, mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual. So mentally, improv always allows you to see a different point of view because you're not hanging on to your own perspective. It allows you to see mentally flexible. Whatever happens, you can see a different perspective. This is why kids say funny things to adults. A child has one point of view and an adult has a second point of view. The reality is the same and different for both. I have a friend who has a seven-year-old daughter. The girl says to her mother one day, mommy, what is that? He brings so much work home at night. He never plays with me. He promised to play with me. The woman says, well, honey, he doesn't have time to finish it during the day. A little girl thinks for a minute and says, why don't they put him into a slower group? You know, in her world, you don't finish your work. You put him into a slower group. So mentally, you get more flexible with improv. Physically, the laughter and the fun reduces tension. Laughter and tension cannot exist in your body at the same time. Picture two people moving out of each piece of furniture. They're very tense. What if one starts to laugh? You cannot hold onto it. So the play allows you to literally loosen up, which gives you less tightness, which allows you to think of alternative realities. The third quadrant is the heart. Emotionally, improv works two ways. One, it brings you closer to people in situations, the people you play with, the cooperators, the joy we have in co-creating and helping each other out. Perfect closeness. I'm not alone in this big bad world. The other side, humor helps us deal with the fear. And improv, the laughter helps us deal with the fear. So we can make these situations what if situation or play games that address our fear. One of the gifts of being able to see Alan Alda the other night was to be reminded of how, in the TV show MASH, which is nothing about how people improvise fear. That's what that show is at its bottom. Improvise fear. And how do you survive about that? And the fourth quadrant is spirituality. Mind, body, heart and soul. Mental, physical, emotional, spiritual. What does improv do? You play improv. It lifts the spirits. It lightens up. What do they say? Why do angels fly? Do they take themselves lightly? I think it's because they play improv. Because that's a hard job taking care of all of us on this plane. You know, if you're an angel, you want to play. So, I decide to take surgery. I go Mass General, laparoscopic. I'm supposed to go in on Friday afternoon. I'll go out on Sunday. Great. Surgery's fine. I'm ready to go Sunday. They tell me something. You can't leave until you pass gas. I'm a guy. I've been waiting all my life for somebody to tell me that. I'm walking up and down the halls. Finally I do. I get out. I remember the doctor has said, things should be fine. Just in case you might be a little incontinent, get yourself some diapers. I go to Walmart to buy for the first time in my life, adult diapers. And I walk in. I don't have kids. I've never bought diapers. I go to the diaper aisle. It's not there. I don't want it over the loudspeaker. Besides, they probably don't know. I'm wondering, it's in the incontinence aisle. Which I'm thinking, why isn't this next to the toilet paper aisle? But I guess that's just me. So I'm looking. And you can buy either 4 or 48. I think I only want to do this once in my life. I buy the big box. I put it in the cart. It's the only thing in my cart. I'm walking over and then I realize everybody's looking at everybody else's cart. Diapers, though. I pick up some gum and some chips and some canned goods. And I'm on a line waiting to check out. And I'm embarrassed. I'm really low. What's the offer? I look around and there's a man in his 90s on the next aisle. And I'm thinking, I'll ask him to buy my diapers. Because it's natural for him. And then I realized how my life had come full circle. When I was a young man, I used to ask old men to buy me beer. And now I'm trying to get the old guy to buy me diapers. Thank you very much.