BECOMING A JESTER

A jester must have three skills.

The first skill jester needs is a sense of humor. A fine and enormous sense of humor. The Jester lives in Comic Zone, not Drama Zone.

The second skill a jester needs is ability to adjust to whatever comes up. The jester can hop, skip, work, and play through life because of his or her skill in adjusting to unforeseen and unplanned.

The third skill a jester needs is to “make believe.” He or she says: “In this situation (this day, this life), I think I need to be like this,” and then creates and becomes that “this.” The jester “makes believe” until one day he or she wakes up having truly become person imagined before.

Let’s begin to enlarge jester ranks.

And today . . .

Start a Jester Journal. Make it sturdy. This Journal is meant to become dog-eared, written in, carried around, color crayon-ed, eaten over, played with.

Pretend today that you are outside of fishbowl. Observe things. Maybe imagine that you are a visitor from another planet. In your mind, question everything you see. Ask “why?” Ask “why?” again. And then ask “why?” some more.

Why is that clothing appropriate dress for this situation? Why is this music being played now? Why is meeting being held here? Why is she sitting at her desk instead of on floor or in a park? Why is this program on television? Why am I watching it? Why are there no animals in this setting? Why did I have that for breakfast? Why are people doing this? Why is this in newspaper? Write your observations in your Jester Journal.

And then write new ways you would like to see things be. Use much playfulness. Dogs, puppets, and ant farms in workplace. Meetings in amusement parks. Hokey Pokey in street. Cookie-handlers standing on street corners handing out cookies to passing cars. Singing at power lunches.

More miming, less talking. Frequent standing ovations by those standing in line in banks or post offices or grocery stores. People carrying crayons with them at all times and drawing pictures on any appropriate paper -- napkins, tabs for restaurant meals, what else? Flutes and harmonicas and bells being played in abundance on buses.

Begin to make some of these new ways happen.

Have fun and write it all down in your Jester Journal. The more you write, more your imagination will think of new whys and new ways.

And more you will grow in your jesterhood.

©Copyright 2002 Stephanie West Allen

Personal coaching can be a lot like shaking your keyboard. It can lead to a renewed feeling of peace and harmony in your life. Personal Coaches can show you loops that you are in and guide you out of them, to a new way of life. It is important to choose a coach that is compatible to you. You also need to find a coach who is living what they teach. If you encounter a coach who seems to be just reading things to you from a script, and then sending you script that they just read to you over phone, then you need to try a new one. You should be able to chat easily with your coach. If you don't feel at ease with him/her, then you are not going to gain much from work. All good coaches will offer you a free session, and it is your best interest to use it. That way, you can see how it feels to you, and make an informed judgment about it.

And metaphors aside, really do turn over your keyboard and give it a shake; it makes keys work a lot better!