“I had a dream
I got everything I wanted
Not what you’d think
And if I’m being honest
It might’ve been a nightmare”
I came across this Billie Eilish song (like most things) quite by accident, and before I heard the rest of the lyrics and realised what it was about, I was already struck by these first few lines:
The song is about a nightmare that she had, where she committed suicide and was heartbroken to discover that her friends didn’t like her and no-one cared and she was even criticised by “the internet”. (Video of song posted at the end of the blog).
When I first heard these lyrics, the first thing that came to my mind was, how true!
What if you really did get everything you ever wanted right now?!
Like right this second, poof – everything you ever dreamed of or longed for – you got.
What a nightmare?! Like literally, what on earth would you do for the rest of your life if you got everything you wanted right this second?!
You see, I believe deeply that life is not a problem to be solved, but rather an adventure to be enjoyed and explored!
Most people go through life thinking they are broken and need fixing and that their lives are lacking something and they need something to make it better. Because of this misunderstanding, they are sold lies about happiness.
But, I don’t believe it at all!
I do believe that society is broken and needs fixing. And I do believe that the economy is broken and needs fixing. But people? Life? Nope, not a chance.
I look at societies which fixate on generating wealth and celebrity and I cringe. Really cringe. The thing that everyone craves and yearns for is such a false god! If anything – the thing that most spend their whole lives chasing because they believe it will make them happy, is the one thing that those who have these things will willingly tell you, have no bearing on happiness.
I love it when celebrities are honest about this.
Jim Carrey has famously said,
I guess the reason that most celebrities don’t say this is because they don’t want to seem ungrateful. They don’t want to burst our bubble or theirs . They daren’t admit that this thing being chased, by millions or billions even, is hollow and meaningless. (I have another blog in the pipeline about “legacy”).
Over Christmas, I watched 2 documentaries about Whitney Houston. Like many I saw her as super talented and successful and when she fell into drugs and everyone blamed her relationship with Bobby Brown, I took a passing interest, but as I’m not a big fan of celebrity culture, I hadn’t really thought about her life too much because I don’t like to contribute to the cult of celebrity.
But these days with my understanding of trauma and addiction, and with the now known tragic outcome for both her and her daughter. This time, I was interested.
Knowing what I know now about addiction – if someone is addicted to anything, by default, you should look for the trauma that caused it. And if you go back to Whitney’s childhood – you can see disorganised attachment very clearly (with her mother) and a father who was only interested in money and was corrupt and seemed unlikely to be a nurturing caregiver. Then we discover through interviews that her and her brother were sexually molested by a female relative. Now the later addiction and co-dependent destructive choice of husband starts to make sense. Add onto that, the pressure of financially supporting everyone in her family (they all “worked” for her by their design not hers) and the way in which her family used her talents to benefit financially and you start to see the perfect storm coming. When she had a child, there is plenty of video footage which shows her recreating this perfect storm with her own child – intergenerational trauma – if not healed, just gets passed along/ recreated in the next innocent generation. You can literally see how Whitney recreated disorganised attachment with her daughter the way her mother did with her. You see Whitney parading her daughter on stage under the name of “love and pride” but actually using her as a prop in her show in the exact way her mother did to her. The conclusions were both tragic and inevitable.
But from the outside looking in – Whitney Houston got everything we’re supposed to want: success, fame, awards, adoration from the public, a hugely successful career, she had family around her, she was hugely financially successful, she was married, she had a child. These are all things we are told bring happiness.
She got everything she was told she should want.
She got everything, we are told we should want.
But was she happy?
No.
Not because she didn’t use it wisely, but because these “things” in and of themselves don’t bring happiness.
And often they bring the burden of responsibility.
Sometimes the thing we are told we should want – brings us the opposite. Ever yearned from something or someone and you get them only to find they were not what you thought they were when you were in the yearning stage? Disappointing eh? But what after you get what you’re told you want, that thing then imprisons you. You can’t find your way out – you’ve entrapped yourself? You chased it – you’re the only one to blame. Maybe it’s just easier to perpetuate the lie than to admit that you’re unhappy?
When celebrities start to spiral downwards into drink and drugs or self-sabotaging behaviour which doesn’t end well, we tend to think, “Why? They are so talented! They have so much! What a waste.”
But what if they are subconsciously trying to break the walls of their self-created prison in the only way they know how? And everyone else around them is trying to keep the walls in-place?
Can you imagine for a moment that you have a gaping wound that you have carried around with you, your whole life and it hurts, it hurts really bad. And you go on tv or on stage and everyone claims to adore you but no one can see it. You’re standing there with a deep wound, bleeding and no-one sees it – instead they ask you to perform for them to make themselves feel better?
I don’t know about you – but that would crush me.
Surely you would question what they are really seeing?
I don’t know if this breaks any copyright laws but here is a clip from the documentary I was watching where Whitney talks about people thinking that money and fame solves everything:
Even though I have very fond memories of Whitney’s songs at special times of my life, I find it hard to watch videos or listen to songs of hers now. It just makes me feel too sad for her. ( I have added one of my favourite later years Whitney performances from Oprah at the bottom of this blog, just because the message of the song is so beautiful and poignant, even though I blubber all the way through it).
I have a lot of respect for Sia – she spiralled downwards, she hit the bottom, but then when she rose again she carved out her own way to do what she loved (music) but without the “fame” and playing the celebrity game. She learnt the hard way that she needed to protect herself and her talent from it. She walks her own path now – I have massive respect both for her talent and the creative way she has learnt to protect it.
I heard these lyrics, before watching the Whitney documentaries, but the truth in them stood out for me, when I heard them….I actually stopped in my tracks (that’s what truth does to me sometimes, it pins me to the spot until I can figure out why it’s true).
“I had a dream, I got everything I wanted
Not what you’d think.. And if I’m being honest
It might’ve been a nightmare”
Although it was not my first time visiting there, back in 2015-2016 when in India I was really struck by how such a beautiful, deeply spiritual and wonderful country was falling under the spell of Western Capitalism and I wanted to cry, shout and scream, “ Don’t follow us! We’ve got it all wrong!” I even wrote a blog about this at the time. When we swap spiritual truth for homogenised dreams and bigger houses and bigger walls, then we start to create beautiful prisons for ourselves.
I bought out of the societal idea that wealth and celebrity was the main goal in life a long time ago.
And although I like the finer things in life, I certainly don’t crave them or wealth & celebrity (although I don’t know how else Oprah is going to hear about me and want to interview me?!! Hahahaha), but everything in society is built around this false value. This false god.
How many millions of people waste their lives yearning to win the Lottery/ Lotto?
How many win it and then wish they hadn’t? I’d like to see the stats on that!
I don’t watch alot of “reality” tv but the bits that come up on my radar don’t seem to demonstrate to me in any way that money makes you any happier. You just create a bigger, more pretty prison for yourself and perpetuate the drama of unhealed hurt in pretty settings. You know this is true because these people aren’t being filmed for any reason except for the drama they create on screen (that stems from their unhealed hurt) and if you put them in pretty locations and with other pretty people – it leads viewers to exclaim “Why? When they have so much, can’t they be happy?” The viewers want them to be happy! But most viewers don’t want to scratch at the truth – you can never be happy if you don’t heal your hurt… no matter how pretty, what body you have, what money you have, what exotic location you’re put in.
If it was true that wealth and celebrity was the be-all-and-end-all then why do rich and successful people commit suicide just like those without money? Why do they have addictions just like the rest of us? Divorce? Ill-health? Insecurities? Unhappiness?
Surely, money and constant attention would protect you from such things?
When you say it outloud it sounds absurd right? Good. Because it is!
What if you got everything you wanted right now?
I am always asking people to re-define their own idea of what success is – because I genuinely believe it is important to choose consciously for yourself what success looks like for you. Not what you think it should like. But what you envision for your life.
You didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you anyway… This is my honest personal definition of success for my life.
My definition: help as many people as I can be happy and healthy through understanding the truth about life. Be happy and healthy myself and to spiritually evolve as much as I can in this lifetime. Try not to contribute to any unnecessary suffering for any person, animal or planet.
And I can narrow my definition down even further for you: get as close to enlightenment in this lifetime as I can and everything else will take care of itself.
As you can see there is no money involved in my definition of success. Do I like money – sure! Does it facilitate my comfort and my curiosity of life – sure does! But do I crave it? Nope. I like nice stuff but I’m not attached to any of it.
Contrary to what you’re told. You weren’t given life to GET THINGS. You were given life to contribute to it.
Life isn’t about getting what you want. It’s about exploring and contributing to the rich tapestry of life.
And despite all the other crap you’re sold by culture and the unhealed trauma of billions of other people – the only things anyone truly wants (whether they recognise this or not) when you strip every thing back, are:-
To Feel Safe.
To Feel Love.
To Contribute something of Worth to life.
The rest my friends is a complete fabrication of economies and culture of people who don’t know any better. Why not create your own path? Your own definition?
Want happiness? The best way is to define it yourself and then just live it.
Your Definition, Your Path, Your Life.
So what’s your definition of success? You might already be successful and you just never realised it!
I would love to hear your personal definition of success so please comment below!
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As promised my favourite Whitney performance. It makes me cry every time. RIP Dear One.
Here is the song that inspired this post:
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