Bono said in his 2001 Harvard Commencement Address, “What does it say about a singer who needs 20,000 people screaming his name to feel good about themselves?”
We all have different criteria to feel good about ourselves. Maybe it’s not 20,000 people, but a few people, or at least the ability to be seen by a few.
When people say ‘if you have five good friends at the end of your life, you’re lucky.’, soical media has changed that number radically, more like 500,000. The pressure to be something has become overwhelming, especially in young people. The demand to be Given a life rather than Build a life has become the order of the day.
These are descriptions of the zeitgeist but what to do is something else entirely. You can’t slow the machine down, so how do you have a satisfying life when the condition of dissatisfaction has become the fuel.
We have to look outside of ourselves to others who seem to be living with and creating with the conditions that exist. We have to look to those who represent qualities that we admire and learn from them.
Not everyone has the whole deck. We have to have several mentors in different areas. We live in a time of specialists.
Be well.