Amy Winehouse…

Wow, she was talented and yet she also seemed to be tortured. A lot of us would have loved to have her life and yet, she seemed to throw it all away and die a long time before she needed to.

“They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said no, no, no!”

It seems she really should have said yes, yes, yes.

This is not however a diatribe on the evils of Amy Winehouse because really we all have our flaws, we just do not have to wear them as publicly as her persona had to. Many of us wish we were famous though. The question I would like to ask is this –

If you did become rich and famous right now, would you be ready for it? I know your first shout may well be a resounding YES! But are you sure? Really?

We have all heard the statistics about people who win the lottery and lose it all in fairly short order and in some cases, end up worse off than they were before. Why do you think this happens?

They were unprepared!

Do you play the lottery consistently week on week? What if you did win? What would you do with the money? Have you made a plan for the appearance of your dream? It may not be the lottery but what is your best dream and are you ready to live that dream if it appeared right now. If not, then why not?

Most of us live very firmly in today, in all the mundane issues that we face and we make no future plan. We cannot raise our heads high enough to notice anything apart from the problems we face right here and now. Needless to say, most of us therefore remain in our mundane life doing the same things over and over. Occasionally a small proportion of us decide to make time to plan for a different life and we regain hope.

Ok, am I saying that planning for our dream life will definitely cause it to put in an appearance? No, but it definitely increases the chances of this happening. People like Amy probably practised hard on her singing, wrote songs, made a choice to mix with music people (even when she felt inadequate), and generally acted in ways that we can only imagine in order to live her dream. Unfortunately, her character seemed unable to handle her new life so she took a dive for the worst.

We have the opportunity to not only work on our talents but also make sure that our character is built up to the point where we are able to deal with the incredible pressure of being popular, of being watched seemingly all the time. If we are the same inside and out, we are less likely to implode. Becoming the same inside and out is a conscious process that takes time to develop as we pay attention to our dream and also to our character.

Having said all this, I must admit I am looking forward to the new Amy Winehouse album. Are you?