Idioms – Opposite of ‘When Things Go South’

The human mind has a natural tendency to make metaphors to describe abstract concepts. In English, one such metaphor is

"up" = good, in working order
"down" = bad, broken

Examples:

• Is the mail server up?
  The server went down yesterday when the hard disk crashed.

• The dictatorship rose to power in 1969.
  The regime fell as a result of the coup d'état in 1974.

• In the heyday of the motor industry, things were looking up.
  However, since the collapse of the motor industry, Detroit has gone downhill.

• He hit rock bottom when an alcoholic binge landed him in the emergency room.
  He has since rebounded.

• Management approved proposal A, but gave a thumbs down to proposal B.

Combine that with the arbitrary convention to orient maps with north pointing up and south pointing down, and you get an idiomatic expression "going south", meaning "turning bad".

Note that these metaphors are not always generalizable. For example, going uphill is not the opposite of going downhill. ("Uphill" usually refers to some kind of struggle.) Similarly, "going north" is not a commonly accepted expression. However, it is possible to say

Profits are expected to be north of $3 million this year.

… meaning "above 3 million dollars".

What kind of "activity" is this used for? Housework? Skydiving?

I ask because English does have a similar idiomatic expression for mundane activities. For example, if he's procrastinating, I might tell my son:

Hurry up and get your schoolwork done. Your homework isn't going to do itself.

or:

For the third time, get your room cleaned up! That bed isn't going to make itself.

As another example, next week, my wife might say something like:

We'll need to take the decorations down soon. These Christmas decorations won't put themselves back in the attic.

This is usually said when talking about some activity that is easy to put off, but I suppose it could be used in other contexts as well. For example, a skydiving instructor could use similar language to emphasize the importance of something:

Make sure you pull your rip cord after you jump out of the plane! That rip cord isn't going to pull itself...

Google books returns some results showing fictional characters making statements like these:

• “Well, gotta go. The soil isn't going to aerate itself!”
• “That paper isn't going to move itself, Elroy.”
• “Well, supper isn't going to get itself on the table.”
• “What are you doing? This stuff isn't going to take itself downstairs no matter how hard you look at it,” Charlie commented sarcastically.