Imagine you were in a rock band struggling to break through. The group finally signs a contract, but then you get kicked out of the band just days before the first recording session. Ouch! How would you feel at that moment? Now ask, how would it feel decades later if the band had then fallen apart and not made it? But how about if the band had become incredibly popular after you got kicked out? How would that feel? Let’s look at two people who had the latter experience.
In 1983 a heavy-metal band, about to start recording their first album, gave guitarist Dave Mustaine a bus ticket home and told him he was no longer in the band. He sat on the bus stunned and perplexed. What had he done wrong? Soon, however, he became consumed with the idea of starting a new band and achieving success and stardom that would leave his old band envious and filled with regret for dumping him. His revenge-fueled anger drove a work ethic that did lead to success. Many consider him one of the best and most influential heavy-metal musicians. The band he formed, Megadeth, sold more than 25 million albums. It appears his plan worked. One significant problem. The band he got kicked out of was Metallica. It has sold more than 180 million albums. Mustaine has admitted he still considers himself a failure—the guy who got kicked out of Metallica and has not matched their success.
In 1962 a four-person band in Liverpool, England was causing a stir. After two years of effort, John, Paul, George, and Pete had a contract. Just before starting to record, the others kicked Pete Best out of the band and invited Ringo Star to be their drummer. The Beatles quickly shot to global stardom; Pete Best failed in other musical projects, became depressed, and attempted suicide. Things did improve for Best; he got a civil service job, married, had children, and remained active in music. He never, however, had the sort of success that Mustaine did. Yet, his reflections on the past and what he missed because of his dismissal from the Beatles are much different than Mustaine’s. In 1994 Best said he is happier than he would have been if he had stayed with the Beatles. He stated that what he gained through his marriage, family, and a simple life are of much more value than all the attention, adulation, wealth (and all that came with it) that he would have had as a Beatle.
The surprise twists in both stories call for reflection. Society considers Mustaine a great success. Surprise. He does not. Society considers Best unfortunate, surprise. He does not.
Mustaine’s revenge-driven striving to prove himself better than others and thus adopting an extremely high standard of success seeped into all he did. It was toxic. His experience calls out a warning to us: are we seeking status and security through besting others? Do unrealistically high standards crush us?
Best's experience, however, calls us to an even deeper reflection—not just about whether the standards are too high, but what values inform the standards? The default assumption for many in society is that Ringo was the fortunate one who got the lucky break. Pete Best thinks he was. In conversations in my jail Bible study, I regularly make the observation that it is not just many men in jail who have embraced a set of values and measures of status that hurt themselves and others. I say, "in office buildings just a couple of blocks from the jail many people have embraced a set of values and grasp for status in a way that hurts themselves and others." Society punishes one way of status seeking and affirms another, but neither is the way of Jesus.
What are ways that societal values and societal definitions of success may be infiltrating your being? Your faith-communities character? Are you grasping for status or goals that, in the end, will hurt you and others? Out of love God challenges us to repent and turn to the way of Jesus.
What reorientation do these stories call you to?
(Thanks to Wade French for sharing the Pete Best story with me and point me to the book he read the two stories in, Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F___, pages 76-81.)