Michael Jackson - a Lesson on How Not to Be?

How many people do you know who are brilliant at what they do for work and useless at personal relationships? There are certainly a few in my sphere and a public example who springs to mind at the moment is Michael Jackson. Being the same age and a music fan I watched his career with interest and I believed him to be a genius at song writing and a breath-taking performer. But, what a mixed up and sad individual in his private life. Here was a man who started as a handsome little black boy with an amazing voice but who became a man who, literally, wasn’t happy in his own skin and set about trying to change himself - but from the outside in - which was never going to work. Instead of being proud of his many accomplishments, awards and fan base, he just couldn’t ‘tune out’ the critical voice - probably his father’s – which kept telling him that he had a big nose, wasn’t perfect and would never be the person he wanted to be. 

In fact, as far as Emotional Intelligence is concerned, a whole book could be written about Michael, using him as an example of how not to be. It would appear that his life was spent trying to ‘fix’ himself but never from within his core being. By all accounts, his father was a demanding, unpleasant man who treated his children, Michael particularly, as commercial entities. Being a star from the age of five, it’s little wonder that Michael’s inner child was never allowed to develop naturally and not a surprise that, once he could afford it, he tried to create the magical, fun-filled childhood he never had, by developing and living in ‘Neverland’. His relationships with young boys were questionable to say the least but it is my belief that he was merely acting out what he thought a natural adolescence to be, which, of course, is wholly inappropriate in a grown man – but in the arena of relationships, Michael was only an adult physically, not mentally. He also appeared to be anthropomorphic in the extreme and kept his monkey, ‘Bubbles’, as part living toy, part companion (who, of course, could never answer back) and then had his three children, maybe, to mould into the sort of young people he could never have been or, to satisfy his longing for unconditional love. What he didn’t take into account was that, in order to accept love, one must love oneself or that, as the children of arguably one of the most famous people in the world, they would also be brought up in an unreal world, as he had been. 

While Michael is an extreme example, there are many, many people who are desperately unhappy with how they look or act as the result of a damaged childhood. They may appear to be successful and happy on the surface of life but, eventually, the cracks will start to show unless they address the origins of their feelings of failure. To do this, they have to go inside themselves and find out who they really are, forgive themselves for what they perceive to be their shortcomings and start to befriend themselves. Poor Michael never realized this, resorting instead to the external fix - the surgery, the make believe, the superficial friendships and the prescription drugs. The world will be a poorer place without his talent but maybe his tragically early death can remind us all that money and fame mean nothing unless we truly are happy in our own skin.