I recently discovered the reason why many people live with an underlying feeling of dissatisfaction. (Hopefully, this is going way beyond Mick Jagger and the Stones!) I call it the superstar syndrome. Both our western culture and our Jewish cultures are obsessed with superstars. From American Idol to gold medal winners, to million follower influencers, to billionaire entrepreneurs, and yes, Jewishly, the ”Gadolim” (literally, “big people” who are super evolved spiritual human beings), the superstars of non-profit movements, the scholars who know Talmud inside and out, the message is, if you’re not great, you’re a nobody and you’ll never know true joy and fulfillment.
I’ve realized that I have burnt out at times, trying way too hard to be great, failing, and feeling dissatisfied and hopeless. I think an important part of this problem is that there’s a bit of a perfectionist in all of us that expects that life should simply be perfect—consistently full of joy, meaning, and fulfilling. And when we fall short of these expectations, we become angry and depressed. The real tragedy of this pressure to be a superstar is that we miss living fully every day because we’re too focused on achieving some great goal way ahead of us in the future. We’ve been sold a lemon and we keep driving it even though it sputters and breaks down regularly.
If you’ve bought this belief that life happiness only happens when you become a superstar, then maybe it’s time to consider another approach to finding happiness in life. The alternative and what I believe is the truth is that we must learn how to experience the deep pleasures of each day and recognize that enjoying many moments each day is living a successful life. People who consistently live each day fully, feeling content with their portion, enjoying the small accomplishments, even the failures when we make a sincere effort to do good are the true superstars of the human race.
How about you? Ready to stop your self-induced suffering and start living the truly good life? In every moment of life we have a choice to find the good in it or see what’s wrong or lacking. Yes, I hate to say it, I have come to recognize that the true challenge of living well is to choose in each life situation to find the half of the glass that is full, good, and pleasurable and not focus on the half that is lacking and feels empty. I can choose to focus on the patient who drops out of therapy, feeling like a mediocre therapist or focus on joy of having a job I love in which I am still learning and growing.
What I’m suggesting is a giant shift in perspective which is a total game changer. Give it a try! You might just start enjoying life and actually feeling like a real superstar!