It's all material

I saw an interview recently with Jerry Seinfeld, who I’m not ashamed to admit is one of my personal heroes. In it he said that he can’t stop looking for comedic material in every situation, no matter where or when it is.

This got me thinking; I can be guilty, as can I’m sure many others, of walking around with headphones in, going about my daily routines and barely registering my surroundings. So I decided to conduct an experiment and actively spend more time mentally engaging with my day, watching people going about their business and generally paying more attention to the world.

What I found (bearing in mind that I work in and commute into central London) is that there’s so much colour to be seen if you are looking for it. Interesting characters abound, and amusing situations arise. In one morning I saw an exuberant chap who had decided to be unofficial announcer and direct traffic on the platform of the Waterloo and City Line, and a lady who pulled someone’s earphones out of their ears, scolding them for singing too loudly on the train. The message here is that if you take the time to be present in your surroundings, rather than stuck with the world inside your head, you are likely to be more entertained by the goings on around you than you ever will be listening to music or a podcast. What is more, you may even get to home or work with some funny stories to tell, making you more interesting and popular to boot.

In a similar vain, I also find it helpful to view absolutely every situation is an opportunity for material, whether the experience is personally positive or negative at the time. Failures become interesting war stories, slip ups or faux pas become amusing anecdotes, and literally every situation (assuming all involved survive it) will in time be far more significant for it’s addition to your repertoire of stories to tell, than it’s impact on your long term success or ability to reach your goals. Recently I was on holiday in Portugal, and having a long overdue date night with my wife. After several drinks we ended up in a very high end wine bar. We found a table and I nipped off to visit the lavatory. There I found a door with an actual key in it to lock the door with. On turning the key, it promptly fell out of the door, hit the floor at and angle, and bounced straight under the door. So here I was, half cut, with no phone, locked in a toilet stall. My first thought was “bugger”. My second thought was “once I get out of this it’s going to be a great story”. In the end my only means of escape was to lie on my side, with my face to the floor, and tease the key back under the door using a credit card. I went back to my wife (20 minutes after having left her) with a damp arm and face, but chuckling raucously about the tale I had to tell.

So remember, in every adverse situation, in every tight spot and through every personal disaster; in the end it’s all material.?