The End of an Error

WHY!?!? Whyyyyy????  Whhhhhyyyyyyy? The scream echos throughout the cafe.  The person on stage, singing, stops for a moment and stares.  Patrons turn and look at us, the little, but the oh so smart, 10 year old boy sitting across from me is having a giggling fit.  And I, hands at my head pulling my hair at the root, scream in despair as literally 20 white pieces get surrounded and pulled off the board by this child.

I've lost this game of Go because of something I didn't see.  A simple error.  But the mistake cost me 3/4th the board and almost all of my pieces. There's a saying that we are all fine when we make a mistake.  It's when we realize we've made the mistake -- it's at that moment when we find out what we're made of.

Did you realize that our lives are made up of mistakes?  They are defining moments.  We can hang our head in shame, ears burning, embarrassed or we can get excited by them.  What did we learn?  How can I grow from this?  It's an opportunity to make myself, this project, this choice, this day, my next game -- better.  Yes, mistakes can be painful - how long we sit in the pain and how productive we choose to be afterwards is on us.

"I've never seen so many people, who after they're done working, beat themselves up so badly.  They're frozen.  If they make a mistake, it's the end of the world."

My friend, on his time away from his high level, high powered career job, is learning the craft of acting.  He originally started in a stand up class, moved to improv and sketch comedy, then to Meisner, Suzuki/Viewpoints training, and now onto a Stanislavsky based scene class.

"You never get that in improv or sketch.  Can you imagine?  If everyone on stage in improv or sketch stopped the show because they made a mistake? "  We laugh.  We laugh because we know in improv or sketch the mistake is golden, it's what we build the scene around.  It's what we heighten to build patterns and games and it's what often gets the laugh.  But how come, in life, it's so hard to laugh when we make mistakes?  How come, like the scene study class, we often beat ourselves up and treat it like it's the end of the world?

"How many of you, think that the Air Corp training, is the way to go?  That you should take the best of the best pilots and you weed them out, and then take the best of them and then send them off  on a course where other pilots have gotten killed in order to deliver the mail because you want to get government money to become the Air Force?  How many of you think that type of training sounds right to you?"

There's a pause as he looks around.  Almost everyone in the writing workshop has raised their hand.

"Well, you'd be wrong!  They almost all died!"

The writing instructor, Corey Mandell, goes on to explain the example given in the book The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle.  It turns out that a short guy who never even made it into the training program created this device to practice in.  It had a red light that would go off every time you made a mistake.  This device is what made the difference.  It's this device that was the key to success.  Not "talented" people who were the best of the best of the best.

"Mistakes are not an option for success.  Mistakes are REQUIRED and NECESSARY for success," Corey passionately shares with us.  The skills needed for success only happen when we make a mistake and start over again and try again and make a mistake and reassess and try again, and make a mistake....it's this cycle, painful as it might be, that causes us to learn, grow, and become successful.

In the book Mindset by Carol Dweck we learn about fixed mindsets and growth mindsets.  Fixed mindsets experience shame and fear and self abasement during failures.

Growth mindset people experience determination, and excitement, and see failures as a puzzle to be solved.  Their goal isn't often to become successful but they end up successful because of their desire to grow.

Fixed mindset people desire success but often aren't because their fear paralyzes them from moving on from growing and from learning so, ironically, they are stagnant. The "fail" at being successful.

Sound familiar?  We're all a little of both.  But we can choose how we approach mistakes.  Are we going to be improvisers and sketch players who build around it and take a mistake and make it into something else and see mistakes as incredible gifts?

Or, are we going to be "serious" actors who beat themselves up, and tear themselves down, and freeze in fear of making a move when they realize they've made a mistake or just fear making one?

Mistakes will come and go.  They're inevitable. To err or not to err. To miss take or not to miss take.  Those are not the questions.

I look at the actors and the improvisers playing.  As one who has a foot in each world, I can honestly say that it's the laughter that draws me, the joy, the sharing, and the celebration of mistakes that gives me coping mechanisms to push on. To see what's next.  To go and go and go because if we stop, we may stop just before the miracle.  And just like mistakes, miracles are inevitable too.  And sometimes, just sometimes...they're the same thing.

The Heart of the Young

The theatre's packed.  We're all watching as one of the actors on stage grabs the mike and says something.  We chuckle -- but then out of the back far corner of the theatre a high pitched euphoric giggle cuts through and fills the entire house.  And it keeps going.  The adults then laugh a belly laugh at the little child's laugh and the actor on stage laughs and we all laugh for a good minute or two...an eternity in stage time.

What happened to us in the in-between?  What happened between the euphoric giggle of childhood that encompasses us from the soul and takes over our entire bodies to the adult chuckle?  Have we been hurt that much?  Cynicism creeping in and fear of following social graces and doing what's acceptable?

We spend a lot of time trying to please people.  In fact, children have an innate need to please their parents.  But what happens when we try and fail?  When we hurt?  How do we cope?  We build callouses on our hands.  Do we have that "tough skin" added to our spirits?

Some of the youngest people I know are adults past their prime.  There is a natural curiosity they bring with them and an energy that time hasn't been able to dampen.  A flexibility of mind and the ability to make light of the darkest parts of their lives are other abilities that these people share.  When I ask them about it the response is often not one of a victim but one where they've used the dark part of their lives to gain something for their current life.

People who have dealt with cancer and are currently in remission use their experience to help others who are newly diagnosed or going through treatment. Death of loved ones causes them to value life and the simple things that much more.  And a history of abuse turns to a life of clear communication and kindness to those around them with a fierce protection over those who cannot protect themselves.

How do they do that?  How do they turn it around?  It's not like they've had easy lives or are well off or had a lot of support because some of them haven't.  They've just chosen to change the way they approach life -- to do as they choose instead of having life force them to do as it would like.

In auditions as an actor you find that when you go in trying to give people what you think they want, when you try to please them, no one gets pleased.  But when you go in doing what YOU want to do -- what seems fun and feels good to you -- you're pleased and they're pleased.

So is that the secret to a young life?  Is it living as you would desire, to keep the joy and the curiosity and the fun instead of living it as you think you should? To let go of what you think is appropriate and go forth with a giggle in your spirit?

There's immature and there's childlike.  There's aged and then there's old.  There's growing up and there's giving up.  I'd like to think that we can grow up without giving up.

Deep into the 70th minute of an action movie the dark theatre is filled with adults watching the screen.  A suspenseful, tension filled moment is happening and the protagonist is about to go into the antagonist's building.  Out of the front corner of the theatre a little voice yells, "NO!  DON'T GO THERE!" and it startles us into reality and we laugh -- because we realize that the child has voiced the same thing we were thinking to ourselves.  He just didn't filter it.  He went there --  to the place of deep involvement in life with passion, with spirit, and without a care of what was appropriate.