Advising Session.

One of the most hilarious things that has happened in the last few years?  In my estimation?  Is the invention of the "Life Coach."

Oh don't get me wrong.  I'm not a hater.  I'd a.) like to hire a life coach, b.) sometimes refer to myself (albeit slightly tongue in cheek) as a life coach, and, c.) would really really like a life coach to help me out a bit.

I don't think I'm alone in this desire.  My friend Craig says that sometimes he just wants someone to tell him what to do.  (Which, if you know Craig, is a *little* bit hard to believe.  But I *do* believe him.)  The life coach industry (I think) is flourishing.  Everybody I know has a "Spiritual Director" now, too.  (And yes, I want one of those, too.)

But the funny thing to me is that life coaches and spiritual directors are just other people telling people what to do.  (or, I know, "teaching them how to listen to themselves....")

And this does happen to me in my job.  I "advise" students as they matriculate through the university.  Officially I am just supposed to be giving them advice about which classes to take, where to look for an internship, and which office to go to in order to find the form that they have to fill out in triplicate in order to matriculate further into their debt-ridden education.  In reality?  We always end up talking about  more substantive things.

My friend Erin who is no longer my student stopped by for a quick quarter-life-crisis advising session last week.  Talking to her is always a delight.  She's so creative and honest and relatable.  But there came this moment where she decided to start writing down the things I was saying.  And I was struck by the absurdity of it all.  I was just saying things.  And I'm not sure that me saying something makes it worth writing down.

But then again, alot of things get written down that probably aren't worthy of being written down. So....I guess it's okay that she's writing.

Occasionally I get to look at the notes students take in my class and when I read them, I sometimes think:  I didn't say that at all!  (or)  Was I drunk!?  (or) Were they?!

Erin's transcription of my life coaching was pretty dead-on, but it also made me laugh.

I was just imagining the anthropologists combing through the rubble of our civilization and emerging with this life-coaching-session-transcript.

Isn't it funny to try to make sense of what we were thinking when we wrote things down a year ago?  Or yesterday?

It amuses me anyway.