Aristotle once said, “True happiness is composed of many desired ends.”
A Greek theorist, a student of Plato, a teacher of Alexander the Great, head of the royal academy of Macedon while being looked upon as being one of the founding members of western philosophy, Aristotle’s ambition to succeed was fed by several tributaries leading to and from what he called the phenomena of the natural world.
His personal well documented chapters covered 384-322 BC…within his view Aristotle took note of the enormous amount of people who became sick in the mind and heart while sacrificing everything to reach out and touch success. Once held, achievement turned to madness leaving most with nothing to call their own.
Two thousand three hundred and thirty one years later…nothings changed.
A ninety three year old woman sits staring at her grandchildren wondering which one of the three will be the first to flee from the living room to race outside to come face to face with childhood discoveries in a forest of trees, riding ten speed bicycles outside the three block rule or sharing conversation with the neighbors kids comparing each others paths in the way of hoping to hold influence and inspiration.
Ninety three years deep into her book of love and she feels guilty about witnessing the mundane and silly choices the kids elected to make by sitting in front of the television set. She called it a horrible waste of their precious time. If she was anything like my grandparents, television wasn’t a treat but rather a trick. It fooled the minds of a growing thought process creating invisible worlds leading a child’s ambition toward addiction.
Where along your chosen career did you decide the horizon was much closer then where it stood the day before? I’m talking about the morning when you popped your eyes open and quickly realized, “I only have seventeen sets of seasons left!”
Although the Dahli Lama shares in book The Art of Dying that we know of our passing two years before it falls into place…the act of bringing it to the forefront of all things considered cannot be predicted and yet the idea has inspired massive amounts of writers and poets to mastermind books or trails of philosophy based on acquiring such knowledge.
My first and second degree black belt mentor Nathan Richie teaches, “People know you for what you did last for them.”
That well delivered message from the heart proved to be true last week when a friend from Philadelphia captured my name on Google. Bryan couldn’t stop talking about doing seven to midnight radio on KOOK in Billings, Montana. In giant letters I wanted to type, “THAT WAS 1982-85.”
He spoke of writing scripts for nightly Top 5 countdowns, theater of the mind radio concerts that consisted of fake sound effects library audiences and hourly musical artist updates usually swiped from the pages of Rollingstone Magazine.
I quickly invited him to my personal web page to which he replied, “That was nice but it looks like you left the good times back home in Montana.”
People become sick in the mind and heart while sacrificing everything to reach out and touch success. Once held, achievement turns to madness leaving most with nothing to call their own.
Time to call in the doctor! Mick Ukleja takes every personal journey serious. Forgetting about the paths you’ve lined up and later crossed…what you do today affects your horizon. It’s not the rest of your life but the best of your life and it has many possible destinations.
Just like Aristotle believed, “Happiness is composed of many desired ends, not just one.”
Just as much as we expect to feel the love and joy of every new beginning, Dr. Mick puts energy and value in accepting the pleasures of being forced to take a detour. Experiencing a new arrival is ecstatic! Suddenly bumping into a friend who believes your radio career was better presented and accepted nearly thirty years ago should be just as heart warming.
At surface level it felt mundane and silly to sit in front of a computer talking about radio shows barely trapped on old cassette tapes that would probably snap the moment I put them in a machine. It quickly became a waste of my time until I realized…out of all the program directors who’ve shoved their facts and figures into designing my presentation and style, out of every jock I’ve met and created with during these thirty years, Bryan, the intern was in my KOOK studio when the chosen career fell witness to the horizon and realized it was much closer then where it stood the day before?
It was Bryan who convinced me to send an aircheck and resume to North Carolina, “There’s life outside of Montana…go find it.” To help pay for the trip, I sold the Ibanez Flying V guitar I purchased with my birthfathers inheritance money. It was Bryan who waited until I left Montana to walk into the Pawn Shop and buy it back then send it to me as a house warming gift.
Through all this self created madness we sometimes take our eyes off the true journey. It is you who moves through good, better and best…how often do you take the time to listen to a Casey Kasum Long Distance Dedication from a friend who said, “Nice but it looks like you left the good times behind.”
How do you define success?
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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