Five Life Lessons from A Charity Comedy Experience

Five Life Lessons from A Charity Comedy Experience [To be read whilst listening to “New Kind of Kick” by The Cramps.] Yesterday, I participated in a comedy gig for charity. (Thank you to those that came and/ or donated.) About forty of us trained for eight weeks together with the lovely Tom Short, then each performed a five-minute set. We each had to bring at least ten audience members. I learned/ was reminded of some important lessons from this great experience: 1. Comedy is therapy. The world seems quite scary and ridiculous to me at the moment. Comedy is, ironically, almost the only thing that doesn’t seem ridiculous. It makes us feel happier, looser and more able to connect to others. We should try to inject it into all aspects of our lives, jobs, families etc. 2. The courage to leave one’s comfort zone almost always pays off. For almost all the participants, this was their first time performing comedy, performing on stage, or even standing up in front of people and talking. Not everyone felt that they did an amazing professional performance, but everyone was so glad that they had a go and will try more/ other things in future. 3. There are (at least) two kinds of diversity. One is the diversity of our circumstances, the other is diversity of our choices/ behaviours/ thinking and  communication styles. Both are really important. Both are really valuable. In this comedy group, we were lucky to have plenty of both. 4. Speaking about taboos lets us breathe. Many of us spoke about things and in ways that are not considered acceptable in daily discourse, or certainly in business. We all had permission to say anything and to laugh at anything. Sometimes political correctness, whilst laudably motivated, feels suffocating and like it make problems worse. 5. Synergy is powerful. This comedy experience achieved multiple goals with one activity. We raised thousands of pounds for charity, we learned new skills, we took some chances, we made new friends, and we connected to some old friends and family in new ways. I would have liked to add one of my jokes to this post, but I it would almost certainly have gotten me cancelled! Nash Fayyad, Apu Vyas, Bhanu Pranav Challa, Davini Laksmi