The wisdom of guilty pleasures
One of my (many, dear god, so many) shameful, guilty pleasures is my love of true crime shows like Snapped, Solved, Unusual Suspects, Deadly Women…basically, if it’s got melodramatic music, cheesy narration and it’s on the Investigation Discovery channel, I need to watch it. (Loving me means loving all of me.)
Recently, I watched an episode of Solved, dedicated to the 1982 (infamous) so-called “CBS Murders.” (NY Times story about the CBS murders) Fascinating, lurid, and all the rest…but what really jumped out at me, was the fact that the business owner here, Irwin M. Margolies, had to hire a very talented accountant–whom he eventually had killed– to cook his books, for his business to succeed. He hired an accountant to help him steal the lifestyle he felt he deserved. But, as will happen, thieves fell out, 5 people were shot to death, and Mr. Margolies ended up dying in prison,serving time for murder and fraud, among other things.
Then, I watched a program about Andrew Kissel, who was murdered–by a former conspirator–only days before he was due to start his own federal prisons sentence, for running a huge Ponzi scheme.
Suddenly, as a small business owner, I felt much better about my business. No, I’m not rich, but I’m also not a crook. I don’t cook my books and I don’t kill people over money. I have, however, built up a business, from scratch, with clients in the US and Europe, and I have helped a lot of people change their lives. I’m not obscenely wealthy, true, but nether am I going to end up a guest of the Feds, wearing an orange jumpsuit and carbo-loading and working out for 8 hours a day.
Let me also, Your Honor, go on the record making it abundantly clear that there are many small businesses that are thriving and making bank that are run honestly. I don’t think I’m special. You can do great in business and be honest, I’m not suggesting you can’t. I just know for me, watching those shows, made me think, “Oh, that’s right, creating a small business, step-by-step, from nothing takes a LOT of time and even more money. Therefore, even if I’m not currently loaded, it doesn’t mean my business is a failure; it means, running a business is hard work. And those men ran Ponzi schemes not successful businesses.”
My point here is to remind you, as I reminded myself, that creating a life you love is very hard, and that even when you’re actively doing what you love, if you waste time comparing it against what other people are doing, invariably you’re going to make yourself feel like crap. Don’t that that. It’s a huge waste of time and energy. It’s pointless. And what are you comparing yourself to, anyway? All you know of other people and how they live is what they allow you to know…so you’re comparing your behind-the-scenes raw take with someone else’s highly edited, professional production. All that’s going to get you is a lot of bile and despair. And you’ve got bigger things on the agenda.
After all, I don’t know about you, but I like to watch true crime TV, not live it. I’d rather make my success not steal it.
