Life is Improv

Via the Dish, David Zahl remembers Stephen Colbert's 2011 commencement speech at Northwestern University:

After I graduated from here, I moved down to Chicago and did improv. Now there are very few rules about improvisation, but one of the things I was taught early on is that you are not the most important person in the scene. Everybody else is. And if they are the most important people in the scene, you will naturally pay attention to them and serve them. But the good news is you’re in the scene too. So hopefully to them you’re the most important person, and they will serve you. No one is leading, you’re all following the follower, serving the servant. You cannot win improv.
And life is an improvisation. You have no idea what’s going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along. And like improv, you cannot win your life. Even when it might look like you’re winning. I have my own show, which I love doing. Full of very talented people ready to serve me. And it’s great. But at my best, I am serving them just as hard, and together, we serve a common idea, in this case the character Stephen Colbert, who it’s clear, isn’t interested in serving anyone. And a sure sign that things are going well is when no one can really remember whose idea was whose, or who should get the credit for what jokes. (Though naturally I get credit for all of them.)
But if we should serve others, and together serve some common goal or idea — for any one of you, what is that idea? And who are those people?
In my experience, you will truly serve only what you love, because, as the prophet says, service is love made visible.  If you love friends, you will serve your friends. If you love community, you will serve your community. If you love money, you will serve money. And if you love only yourself, you will serve only yourself, and you will have only yourself.
So no more winning. Instead, try to love others and serve others, and hopefully find those who love and serve you in return.
In closing, I’d like to apologize for being predictable. The New York Times has analyzed the hundreds of commencement speeches given so far in 2011, and found that “love and “service” were two of the most used words. I can only hope that because of my speech today, the word “brothel” comes in a close third.

Well said.  I'd like to think this applies to how I live my life, but sometimes I wonder.