I have decided that I need to add a position to the panel of experts I have working on improving my life. In addition to the doctor, acupuncturist, psychotherapist, sometime personal trainer, chiropractor, energy masseuse, kundalini yoga gurus, and little black-and-white dog, I need a personal assistant.

The personal assistant can help me with my work, run errands, and substitute for me at appointments with any other member of the Panel. “Go and tell Psychotherapist about the time I screamed at someone on the street,” I will command, and the personal assistant will do so. (He or she will then return and give me Psychotherapist’s verdict, usually “Yup, he’s crazy all right.”) Or I could say, “Go to the gym and do my routine with Personal Trainer,” and the personal assistant would have to do it.

You can see how the personal assistant would be the low man (or woman) on the totem pole. Every other Panelist exists to order me around, but the personal assistant would exist solely to be ordered by me.

I have a hard time delegating, so the personal assistant may actually have to be some sort of clone of myself. This would make it easier for me to get away with some shenanigans but things could get out of control rather quickly. I don’t suspect my cloned personal assistant would try to take over my life; just the opposite, I suspect that there would then be two lazy so-and-sos sitting around the apartment instead of one.

At least I now have enough furniture to accommodate this.