Last week in my Real Life I received a press release from an organization I am fond of. It announced an event I would be inclined to attend. A blurb about the event was followed by a listing of panelists. At the very bottom was the name and contact information for the “Principle Organizer.” My first inclination was to reply to the sender of this press release from this organization of which I am very fond and point out the error. But then I thought of all the similar mistakes I have made. (The best dates from the early age of word processing when, as an undergrad, I was assigned an economics essay on hyperinflation. My primitive spellchecker replaced all occurrences of the word “hyperinflation” with “Hyperion,” making it seem as if the hypothetical economy upon which I was expounding was actually controlled by the Greek sun god. Being down to the wire on the paper, I turned it in without a final proofread. Fifteen years later I am still blushing. But I digress.)
The more I thought about this press release, the more I realized that the concept of a “Principle Organizer” is pure genius. They have professional organizers for everything: you can get someone to clean out your closet, plant your garden, or ghostwrite your memoirs. You don’t have to sort though your old clothes, your weeds, or your memories by yourself, so why should you face your next moral dilemma on your own? Should I print colour copies of my top 50 wedding dresses from the printer at work? Should I tell my neighbour that her husband propositioned me at the annual block party? Don’t know? Doesn’t matter, just call your Principle Organizer!
The nice thing about a Principle Organizer is that it implies that the answers are actually all there, buried somewhere inside your psyche. It’s not like your Principle Organizer is actually making decisions for you—this is no angel-and-devil-on-your-shoulder situation—your Principle Organizer only organizes your principles, that is, makes them easy to access! No, you should not print your top 50 wedding dresses on the printer in your office! You should limit yourself to the top 5! Or at least use the black and white printer until you narrow it down because those models are all a size two anyway, so the pictures are neither here nor there.
Duh! You had it inside you all along. You just needed someone to shed some light on the grey areas.