Many people believe that once you are successful, all problems will be solved. With success, you become attractive, rich and happy. All people will love you and you can get anything you want. Wow, that will really make you happy. The only think you need to do is being succesful.
In the music business, these people often also believe, that you will get ‘there’ if you are good. And for being good, you need a bit of talent and a bit of exercise. And than you will get there, you will become successful with an album in the charts, you will get many fans, they will make you rich, and life will be heaven on earth.
Is this what life is about? Getting heaven on earth? It reminds me a bit of communists who believe that after the revolution we suddenly have heaven on earth, and all struggles for emancipation, against poverty etc. will not be necessary anymore, for all problems will be solved.
What we have here, are three myths. Success doesn’t solve all problems, it brings you different problems. And being good doesn’t mean that you will get success, you need a lot of luck too. In the music business, the believe in the first two myths is very common. No one will tell you as an artist that you will get new problems once you are successful, or how you can deal with them.
“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” (Bob Dylan)
So money is not the same as success, and happiness is different to both again. Often they don’t fit together, and you have to choose what’s most important to you. The first step to deal with success is to distinguish between success, happiness and money.