WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO TODAY?

*Jeffrey Ball, a Psychologist and Teacher from Wisconsin writes a fantastic and poignant article for Melodrift. He highlights the lesson's life teaches us as we aim higher and higher to become successful in our search for happiness and probes the meaning of human nature and our instinctive desire to succeed.

I grew up originally in a very small town in the USA the youngest in a large family of six siblings. It's understandable then that I would have felt neglected throughout my upbringing within such a large family. I moved to New York City some time in my teens to seek my fate and fortune. I soon realised that I fell far short of all the 'beautiful' people there. The ones which had already decided they were special long ago, and had to be treated as such. I realised the game fast, and I wanted to be in the game along with them. My only problem was talent! I never had, or never really thought I had, any talent.

It was a time of opportunity, where the world was grasping for power and attention. Shows, cabarets, music festivals, the need to shock people was the 'in' thing too, and I must have been the most boring and least shocking person in the state when I began playing a simple keyboard part for various acts in some small local shows.

I gradually went on to become not the star, but the 'star-seeker'. The one who 'stood at the back' and watched the madness unfold night after night, as various acts would bound on to stage having been given their one shot at mesmerising their victims into a submissive state of 'wanting'. It was not that I minded being the least observed and under-appreciated, but I did rather begin, over time, to understand the psychology of the human mind. Right there, at the back of the stage, I studied mankind.

I would write down my thoughts on each act after each performance.. 'Jessie'... too bold. 'The Mantras'.... too excitable.. 'Groove Nation' .....no charisma..

It was a pleasurable experience to be sneakily observing and recording each artist's attributes, or lack of, according to my rules. I could have been wrong, but I felt that I was learning something very important about humans and nature.

I tired of the scene after a good while and my stint as a 'nobody' keyboard player never promised to take off into any kind of opportunistic direction. However, it prompted me to follow a path which might have been the only one I was truly meant for. Psychology.

I went on eagerly to study Psychology after my unimpressive stage experiences. I took my notes with me, the ones where I had observed so many people on a stage and realised that apart from being an entire 'act' (hence called so), these people all showed something in common. They craved and needed, love, affection, acception, success, the utter desire to be adored. They were emotional bags of jelly deep inside. The biggest word of all. The big 'C' was at the centre of this ellipse of spiritual starvation.

Competition! Oh how mankind loves to compete. We feel we need to better ourselves to gain acceptance. We want to know the world thinks we are 'better' than the rest, so we set out to perform a series of human tests on our fellow subjects. Acting, dancing, singing. Doing all we can to prove that we are not any lesser, and hopefully that we are much more than they. Okay so we enjoy it too, expressing the more creative band of energy trapped within us. But I seriously believe that what I witnessed up on the stage for over four years, was a form of very ancient and normal set of behaviours. The act of gaining appreciation, love and acceptance from the world, and of course all these manner of things would indeed ensure our survival.

I read that thousands of years ago, humans would dance to each other barefoot oftentimes upon meeting each other. A way to make friendly contact and also to say. 'Hey look what I can do, do you like?'..They also spent much time showing off (perhaps not on a stage with lights), but they would do it under the stars or within a group circle amongst their tribal brothers.

So we are no different today than many years back, only today the competition is greater. Far more seriously advanced in its expectations. It is no longer a matter of jigging on hot sands or twirling sticks above a cave. The deal that you have today is to be super humanly beautiful and talented and so very much 'the next big thing'. You must be the' what no one else can dare to be' or hope to be, but that everyone wants to be!

You need to SHINE!

So looking from the outside in, much of my observation paid a huge amount of worthy points towards my studies. I learnt that the more we gave the more we got. (Or would think that we got!) Most of the stars are only really 'huge' inside their heads, the rest of the world is quite capable and happy to continue life without them. The sad truth to humanity. No one is super-human and we all would like to emit a power that people might appreciate, and that of which no other person quite possesses. We need our stamp of individuality. Our ego tells us we are falling short of attention, and we therefore go and make efforts to gain attention. What is missing from our souls that we need to draw from the rest of the world?

'Humanity is so very complex yet so simply predictable'

*Hollie had been dragged around the entertainment world since before she could stand on her own two feet. Her parents had decided Hollie's future before she could speak her own mind and express her needs. With a lovely voice and face she was escorted from one beauty pageant to the next, year after year, at the hands and will of her parents. Hollie only ever wanted to live a very simple life, a life of love, marriage, children of her own. At the age of seventeen she killed herself after realising that she could not break free from the chains her parents sought to continously strangle her independence with.

So Hollie is an example of contradiction. How being forced into a life of adoration by the public was not what she needed or wanted, so she ended the nightmare herself.

But what of fame and fortune? I have had the distinct pleasure of interviewing (as part of my studies), those which crave and seek fame and fortune, and also those which already own it.

*Sean is a famous man. He has money, power, prominence, everything he dreamed of having. What happened to him fifteen years ahead, that he now sits alone each night cradling his head in his hands. What went wrong? He seemed to have slowly broken apart with his excesses and suddenly found his life shattered into millions of pieces, pieces of himself scattered across the globe. He was unable to hold the fort that was his name, and his inner self slowly began wasting away. *Sean wishes to be 'normal', live a normal life.

But are we not many of us living 'normal' lives and yet seeking the same life Sean came to live?

If one thing I found interesting about my famous subject, it was that given the chance to do it all again he replied 'yes, but differently'. How does one repeat a life of fame and fortune differently? Perhaps it is another of life's lessons that with too much power we are undoubtedly in danger of failing in our own aim towards what we perceive happiness to be. Sean showed remorse for 'things he had done', 'people he had hurt' including himself. So the more power we possess the more danger we are of hurting others and ourselves. He spoke of a time long ago when he had very little, but 'NOW seemed like a lot more'...... could this have been love? Real love? Not the kind of adoration thrown at stars for their ebullient acts and demands of public attention. Perhaps love given freely and at 'no cost' is the only source of true enlightenment. True love from one person, and one person alone. That of which money and fame cannot buy. Alone and with only himself as his judge, Sean crumbles further into his miserable existence within his world of abundance, still trying to understand who he is and what his real purpose is.

We struggle to improve our lives and have the world perceive us as successful. Daily we must succumb to the worlds lure of high achievement. Commercials selling you a bigger house, bigger car, more money, even the struggle to grasp a hold of old age and stop it in its tracks, if you wish. We want money, power, wealth and true love. Welcome to the twentieth century. With millions of people aiming towards this better life, a life of prosperity, we are constantly asking ourselves 'have I done enough', 'what more can I do', and at which point do we achieve 'happiness'?

In the age we live today, fashion models and celebrities continue to load their bags with modern cosmetics and bully their bodies with plastic surgery, in the hope of transforming themselves into mankinds answer to utter perfection. In the meantime across the other side of the globe people eat grass and insects to stay alive, oblivious and ignorant to the 'game' that is played by their neighbours.

And Time. Time teaches us who we are and what we have become. We all need a good struggle, something to 'prove' that we are alive and able to survive, instincts passed down from our ancestors who could teach us a thing or two. Once the struggle is up, well what then....? How many of us fall short of our expectations, and what were we actually looking for? Throughout our lives we will always look back and hope to discover a new thing about ourselves before we dare to move forward. But move forward we always do, regardless of the way in which we choose to go.

Sean wanted to shine, but his light is fading. Hollie was provided with the spotlight which ultimately killed her.

Sit back and think of your life as a globe. Is it filled with light inside or is there a hole of darkness? What do you REALLY want from the world. What do you want from yourself?

The simple question is, where do you want to go today?

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