Look No Hands

In the past few years a new profession called the Life Coach has emerged. Since the Garden of Eden human beings have been able to live without being coached. Now apparently this is beyond the capacity of our enlightened age and many people earn a good living preying on the vulnerabilities we have chosen to give ourselves because someone told us to.

There is one area of life which always takes a great deal of application to master. It is called Getting Up In The Morning. It is so difficult because all the different parts of us get up at different times. Our good intentions are very active the second we wake up but our reason is often lazier. The arms and legs may move but the torso remains tortoise-like. Who is going to coach us to get up? How are they going to do it?

Clearly the good intention needs no motivational speeches. If it has a problem it is with focus. It can easily be led astray by the other parts of us due to their deceitful offers of justification without effort. The life coach would address this problem by blowing his whistle in its ear every ten seconds. Then it will have to pay attention to the sound and have no time to become distracted. If the good intention can remain focussed it can influence the other parts rather than the other way round and half the battle will be won.

Reason as always can think of innumerable reasons why it should stay in bed. It is hard work always having to be exactly right and work everything out before the heart does. How would the life coach tackle this? By presenting the glittering prizes reason has gained and placing them just out of reach. If reason gets going it too can create nuclear bombs and irreligious systems and analyse everything out of existence. It too can destroy every positive development by pointing out that it is by definition unreasonable. This will soon get reason moving. Staying in bed and avoiding these things would not place it in the Pantheon it has designed for itself. This carrot and stick approach would get reason following good intention without too much delay.

Arms are usually unconcerned by getting up or going to bed. They need minimal effort to move around in any direction they are jointed to. They do not need to get up to move around. It is when they are given a job that they have a problem. They shy away from any attempt to lift the rest of the body out of bed or stop it from falling if it chooses to jump out. The life coach should use psychology in this instance. Simply encourage the arms to move around as freely as possible. If they do this for long enough the rest of the body starts to ache and has to follow suit to keep up with the arms. The rate of arm movements can be gradually increased and the direction changed at irregular but significant intervals. The routine would also be changed each day to ensure the torso and legs do not become immune to it.

The legs pose a different problem. They can move around freely too but if they do they disturb the torso in a different way. They more they move the more they disturb the bedclothes and the comfort the torso craves. Here excessive movement should not be encouraged. The legs need to be coaxed forward slowly in regular straight-bent-straight combinations. Tell the legs how much of a strain it is to move then remind them what will happen to them if they get stuck between the bedclothes and cannot move at all. The slow but deliberate striving to 45 degrees and the inevitable collapse back to a weary straightness will succeed in pushing the torso up the bed and eventually expelling it as it gets exposed to the air but is too bent to spring back under the covers. The legs will then feel suffocated by being the only part left covered and their own rise will inevitably follow.

This leaves the torso. Exactly. Leave it where it is and take no notice. It is only after attention. It wants to be comfortable so it can be the centre of the body in the bed. Outside the other parts are more active and important in individual tasks. Pay it no attention at all. When the other parts move it will see it is not getting anywhere and reluctantly tag along to avoid losing face when all the other parts are moving about impressing people.

When they start setting exams for life coaches the first requirement should be to demonstrate that they can get someone out of bed in the morning. None of the coaching techniques described above is difficult in itself but using them all simultaneously is. But as in other aspects of life coaching the coach starts with a big advantage. Everyone who is physically capable of getting out of bed does so eventually. The coach can claim success every day simply because they have achieved the inevitable. It is the same with every other aspect of life coaching. The life coach can claim success as long as you remain alive. Is that really so hard? But what sort of life will you have if you hand over your fundamental responsibilities to a life coach? Do not think you never will. You have read this far haven't you?