Wannabees

Why can’t we be what We want to be? When we are young we may want to be just what our parents want us to be, just to please them. When we are older, we may change our minds and want to be whatever we think will aggravate them. Maybe we want to be tall, when we are short, or thin, when we are fat. We want to be musical when we are tone deaf. Be good in math, dance like a dream, have rugged good looks or wavy hair, you name it! There’s no end to the aspirations we may have when we run up against the realities of life that contradict the fate we may fervently desire.

But, life, to some extent, at least, is what we can make of it. We can wear high heels or platform shoes to earn those extra inches. Some of us succeed in remaking our bodies through will power. We can devote ourselves to a rigorous education so that we can store lots of information in our heads to substitute for a lack of smarts. We wear make-up to be prettier and work-out to improve our appearance. We can do risky things to bulk up our courage, swallowing our fears. Isn’t that what courage is all about?

I think the wannabees are what this world is all about. The people who aspire to be something, do something, that appear out of reach; the ones who try, fail, and then try harder; they are the ones who make the world we see all around us. Some end up as movers and shakers. They don’t get there without someone paying a price, and often, those paying their part of the price are the people around them who may care for them. And part of that price may be being left behind. Doesn’t that hurt?

But we can’t do without them. We need those wannabees to advance the frontiers of human endeavor in every area of human activity. I think of those young people taking ballet lessons, even distorting their limbs to achieve the perfection they desire. The committed writer faces a million rejections, and many may never achieve an acceptance. He cannot help but write, driven by an inner impulse; it just keeps pouring out! Creativity knows no bounds and no master. Many of us find small ways to cater to that inner urge, fully content in the doing for our own satisfactions.

My mother wanted me to be a violinist, just like all those famous ones. I remember my struggles to master the violin as a youngster; I did not win through to achieve that desired goal. But I did put myself through university on the back of my determination to let nothing stand in my way regardless of the price to be paid by myself and those around me. We know there are often sacrifices to be made, and there are victims left on the trail to achieving our successes. So many just quit and accepted any job to put food on the table. We don’t have to tell you about their fate.

So, what is it that separates the winners from the losers? Is it that some people just never quit? Is it blind chance and circumstance that crown some with success while many face failure? Many of the successful speak of being an overnight success after facing many years of hopeless travail. More than anything it seems to involve a persistent faith in the worth of one’s ideas, talents, causes, in the face of every obstacle.

 And how many had their worth recognized only after they had departed the battlefield. How much do we owe those that toil in obscurity, whose ideas, put together with those of others, permit the breakthroughs made by other individuals that change the lives of humans all over this planet? All of these individuals were wannabees who each contributed a small piece to solving a puzzle. Only the puzzle-master achieves most of the accolades.

What’s our job, parents, teachers, leaders? How do we keep the fire of daring blazing in the hearts of our young? Try as we might, we always have the tendency to instruct in ways that discourage enterprise and daring in the young wannabees, when we should be doing exactly the opposite. Maybe we fear that impulse, worried it may overwhelm us and expose our own limitations. We would be exposing to ourselves the times when we quit rather than having kept trying to achieve a better result. The young feel impeded by the status quo and threaten to overturn our idols, those things we believed were signal achievements. We must be alert not to say no to the search for alternative possibilities.

Fortune favors the bold! Be open to being forgiving rather than insisting that our Wannabees ask for permission.