One of the things that make certain celebrities famous and in-demand is the myth that comes to surround them about “who” they are. The SO MUCH larger than life image that, over time, people expect to see from them. Lady Gaga in a meat dress or some similar, jaw-dropping outfit, Martha Stewart ALWAYS creating beautiful things, Jimmy Carter constantly negotiating peace, Clint Eastwood saying, “Go ahead, make my day,” or Michael Jackson doing ANYTHING with that one sparkling glove.

On the one hand, this kind of mythological status is fantastic because it’s a simple idea that people can latch onto and want more of. It’s a great way to make a career catch on like wildfire.

The downside, however, can be devastating.

Much like getting a tattoo when you’re a teenager that you end up regretting as an adult because you’ve grown and changed as a person, becoming a myth can become a prison for many people, because it turns you into a commodity that MUST produce that mythological thing over and over and over again, if you want your career to survive. It doesn’t allow you to change or to change your mind.

We all want to be wanted. And if you’re wanted for a certain thing that only you can do or way of being that only you exemplify, it makes sense that you’ll want to do that thing a lot. The problem is when you find yourself wanting to “please the public” or “please your fans” and to do so starts outweighing what’s actually BEST for you mentally and physically. When that starts to happen, you’ll be faced with a choice: to be slave to the myth or to find a way out.

Obviously, there are a few folks who are able to surf a change of mind or behavior and the public still wants more of them. But those numbers are slim. That’s why there can be so much pressure for you to stay the same. To ALWAYS produce what the fans want to see, no matter WHAT it’s doing to you.

The NY Times has been running a series on Derek Boogaard, a hockey “Enforcer” (which, for the uninitiated, like me, is the guy whose job it is to beat the guy from the opposing team to a pulp with his bare hands.) Derek Boogaard died at age 28 of a lethal mix of alcohol and pain killers, but the real problem was what his job had been doing to his body and brain.

When people watch sports or any other amazing athletic feat, they don’t usually think of the actual shape of the body doing the amazing thing. Obviously, they’re strong, agile, and supremely skilled–but that usually comes at a price of a wrecked-up and patched back together body. There are only so many broken hands, dislocated joints, pulled tendons, and blows to the head a body can take before it simply can’t perform the way it initially had. Or all it can do is perform, but it can no longer function properly out in the real world.

In Derek Boogaard’s case, after his death, they were able to study his brain which, because of repeated and devastating blows to the head, was showing signs of brain damage and impending dementia that would have colored his future, had he lived.

Sadly, Derek Boogaard is such a great example of what happens when someone chooses to live for the myth and not for themselves. In order to continue being the Enforcer that people paid to come and see, he had to endure tremendous bodily pain and personality changes that led to pain killer addiction and eventually to his death. He LOVED hockey and he didn’t want to let his fans and his team down. But in order to do that, he literally gave Hockey his life.

SO many public figures have done the same thing–pushing their bodies and minds beyond their limits in order to keep the myth alive, and it ends up either destroying their life or it kills them altogether. Some do it because they don’t want to disappoint their fans, others because they don’t want their careers to end, and others because they have no idea what else they would do if they didn’t have this myth to live up to all the time (and, frankly, they like the attention and perks that go along with it, even though to continue it would destroy them).

To continue to live up to a myth (a myth which is often created inadvertently) is a challenge, because it’s usually not based on who we are as a person or who we’re growing into being. And it’s usually not something that will be easy to live up to until the day we die. (I mean, just how old can a Backstreet Boy or a Spice Girl get before it’s kind of creepy to call them that? Or how many times can Madonna put on a wedding dress and sing “Like A Virgin” before she wants to shoot herself from the monotony?) Becoming a myth doesn’t leave room for growth and change, even though ALL people grow and change. It’s part of being human.

High School cheerleaders move on to being grown women, the jet-set party set eventually gets bored and wants to do something else with their lives. The supermom’s kids leave the nest and she finds something else to do with her time. None of us stay exactly the same–and often, when we try to, it hurts us emotionally, physically, or both.

The question is, when you get to that point in your life when you realize that to keep your myth going, you will obliterate yourself if you don’t find a way out, what will you choose? Is your dedication to what others want from you so great that you don’t mind killing yourself for it? Do you need the money or the attention that badly? Or do you feel the shift your life coming on and have the bravery to let go of the myth and see where your new life takes you?

It’s an individual decision but it’s one that, I believe, should be taken very, very seriously. Do you want to live a long and happy life for you? Or do you want to become a martyr to the myth? The choice is yours–and many, many folks have gone the martyr route. Before you take the same path they did, really give it some serious thought. Because you only get this life once.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 11th, 2011 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.