I returned from vacation yesterday on a 7:30am flight from Newark, NJ. The car service picked us up from the shore area at 4:45am; which made it a very long travel day. In addition, I have no luck sleeping on airplanes. Yes, there are times when I'll nod off for 20 minutes or so, but I'll usually awaken with a severe stiff neck that negates any benefit.
So I'm sitting in a half comatose state on a packed airplane too tired to read, watch a movie or follow business news. I noticed that most of the other passengers were sound asleep before catching the eye of a glowing television screen in the row in front of me. We were flying Virgin America, where every passenger has a private television. The images that I saw on the person's screen were both intriguing and disturbing. However, this idle mind was lured to tune in. It was a program called "Botched" on the E Channel. Until that moment, I had never heard of the show or watched the channel (at least not in the past decade). But that didn't stop me from watching four consecutive 30-minute episodes.
For those of you who were like me and never heard of the program, Botched is a reality show about two plastic surgeons who fix patients that have previously undergone floundered plastic surgeries, where most of the patients look deformed or mutilated.
Despite the admirable efforts of the expert doctors' attempts to fix appearances, and in some cases lives, this is a program that I will never watch again. The subject matter and patients on the show are truly sad to take in. What's even more sorrowful is that this show represents a significant sample of today's American society. People are suffering and there are many who make a living by preying on them.
In Welcome to the Big Leagues, I talk about how the unskilled charge top dollar and how many will line up to capitalize on the weaknesses of others. The patients in Botched have experienced the epitome of this. They all started with the distorted belief that they weren't happy, satisfied or good enough in some way, and that they needed to be physically improved or repaired. Seeking immediate gratification to their so called problems, they gravitated towards surgery. In the cases that I saw, all first reached plastic surgeons who were willing to perform surgeries on the mentally unstable or accepted jobs that they didn't know how to do well.
Some of these troubled patients spent every last penny and even borrowed with the belief that an implant, or nip and tuck, would be the true elixir for sustained happiness. Instead, they each fell victim to the many greedy or sick doctors who exploited this. I say "sick", because I include those surgeons who are addicted to narcotics and will perform any surgery to support their addictions. Some of these surgeons had to be on drugs to perform work such as this.
I've personally known two drug abusing surgeons who were sued for malpractice and lost their licenses. At one time, both men were incredibly smart, skilled and successful. But they somehow each took a wrong turn in life and let everything they worked so hard for crash and go down the drain. Nothing is worse than watching talented people reach their dreams and then self-destruct afterwards. The truth is that winners aren't always winners; thriving takes work.
If there is anything to be learned from my experience of watching two hours of bad reality television, it is to always be aware and in control of those things that could "botch" your career or life ... A false sense of happiness, instant gratification, shortcuts, greed, corruption, diet, drugs, alcohol, gambling, and the many others that could destroy your life before it gets started.
As I teach in my book and mention in recent blog posts, life does not consist of climatic moment after climatic moment. Pursuing greatness and mastery are life long efforts. Similar to how you don't just earn a degree and then stop learning for the rest of your life. When you don't put forth your best, it's a disservice to you and often those who surround you. Shoddy performance and a shoddy you do the world no good. Nip any wrong doings in the bud and put your best foot forward each day. Greatness comes one step at a time. When you love who you are and what you do both life and continuous improvement become enjoyable.
Stay healthy my friends!
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