A Lesson from American Idol

I used to be mildly embarrassed to admit it, but now that American Idol’s fastest growing viewing demographic is people my age, I guess it is safe to come out of the closet and say I like the show. Come to think of it, it was my generation that cut it’s teeth on Ed Sullivan and The Gong Show and so perhaps it is a more natural fit than I realized. I like American Idol for a lot of reasons, but more than anything else I love the show because of judge Simon Cowell. I know that Simon is the producer of the program and partly famous for being the caustic and smug brit that we expect him to be, but he is extremely nuanced in his understanding and feel for performance and the music business and usually tells the truth we overly nice Americans won’t say. Remember, we’re the people who tells little Johnny “he can be anything he wants to be if he works hard at it” or “everyone is a winner at our grade school”. Or you’ve got the public school teacher telling the parents “Johnny is showing real promise in this area” because they’ve already done 13 parent-teacher conferences today and they don’t have the energy to tell his parents he should probably join the Navy and learn a trade because he’s not university material. I find Simon’s unvarnished truth at times very refreshing. If a performance was bad, he will call it an unmitigated disaster or not worthy of a karaoke night at a low-end club in Reno. The three other judges in the competition will criticize but usually with too much tact and generosity and hence the performer is not moved to tears like they are when they get Simon’s approval which is obviously more meaningful because it means something. I think there is something from American Idol we all ought to learn and that is our young people need to be told the truth with regards to their talents and aptitudes. Life is way too precious to waste pursuing that for which we have no talent and it is an act of love to steer a young person in the way he/she should go. It’s okay to have a childhood dream but if every boy in my neighborhood had lived out his dreams there would have been hundreds of baseball players and no doctors, teachers, musicians, or even baseball watchers to fill the bleachers. It takes all of us to make the world go around. God makes all of us for a certain purpose and destiny. Your destiny will be confirmed by your abilities and affirmed by people other than yourself. Listen to them and be glad even if they sound a bit like Simon at the time.