Michael Jackson’s life combined great success and talent with tragedy, loneliness, and a need for numerous plastic surgeries. Someone asked me to write a blog about this. I don’t want to comment on any particular personality or celebrity, but will make a few remarks regarding self-image, celebrity and success in general.
Fame is not a substitute for love. And talent alone will not make us happy if we have a poor self-image. Fans of celebrities sometimes project back to them the image or picture they see. This image may be very different from who the celebrity actually is as a person. Without a good sense of self the celebrity might even think that he or she is like the picture that the fans have in mind.
Enormous success, talent and fame can be difficult to handle without a positive and healthy self-image. Without a strong and positive self-picture celebrities might feel that they are not enough and then try to disprove it by pushing hard for perfection. It is beneficial to improve ourselves, but being driven to perfection can create a state of unhappiness, discontent and feelings of unworthiness.
Our society places a high value on outer trappings of success- money, fame, power, talent and appearance. It might seem to some people that these outer trappings would bring happiness and positive self-regard. And yet we have all witnessed celebrities and others who have “it all” and still do not feel good about themselves. They may actually be very lonely among thousands of fans, unhappy with who they are offstage, and push for perfection instead of enjoying realistic self-improvement.
For some people, no matter what they do or achieve it will never feel like enough. This is usually due to a poor self-image and a feeling of “I am not good enough as I am.” This can translate into a feeling of “I am not worthy of love and a truly successful and fulfilling life.”
Enormous outer success does not in and of itself help us to conquer our inner demons. I mentioned in a couple of other blogs on self-image that each of us must learn to manage our inner critic. Our life is meant to be a heroes’ journey and each of us must become like brave warriors who slay our inner dragons.
By embracing and accepting both our strengths and weaknesses we can make peace with ourselves. We can continue to improve without expecting to become perfect. This is a true form of success which can bring the happiness we are all seeking. Albert Schweitzer put it like this, “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.”
Cpyright 2009. Raymond Gerson
