Sometimes I wonder what it was like to live in the days before television. Before planes, trains and automobiles. Before the telegraph.
I don’t think I really want to go back there, but I try to imagine how utterly isolated the continents were, and how generations of people grew up together.
Not only that, but how have all of our modern conveniences influenced the way we think, interact and react to each other. And how differently we look at our lives and the reasons we are here on this Earth.
As humankind spreads its influence over every part of the planet, less and less is left untouched every year. We judge everything by wondering: “How can this benefit me/us?”
I recently read a press release for a new book out on coaching. Personal coaching. The first time I’d heard the term was several years ago in Fort St. John where a very successful businessman I worked for had a personal lifestyles coach.
I see the message reinforced everywhere I look these days: We all need coaching to obtain our goals.
That assumes that we all need goals. But isn’t that why we go to school? Education helps us define our goals in life and brings us closer to achieving them.
I’m not saying we don’t need goals - I’ve had goals all my life. But what if? And who said we needed them? Does it make us better producers? Better consumers?
Thousands of jobs are eliminated every month in the business world as offices downsize to make the bottom line look better, thus creating the new profession of consultants. Companies can hire them back at a fraction of the cost it would take to keep them on the payroll full time. Consulting also indicates an “expert” status, which implies mental work rather than physical. Which usually leads to more sitting in front of a computer or behind a wheel or in front of a telephone.
Isn’t it funny that experts have experts coaching them? Wonder what happens when you reach the highest level of expert?
Makes me imagine myself living in a time when people weren’t so smart.
Wendy Coomber is editor of the Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal.