When the foundation is broken
Are Taylor Swift's accomplishments more impressive than Britney Spears's?
Two female pop icons have been in my thoughts lately.
One is Taylor Swift. The other is Britney Spears.
One is conquering the world. The other is struggling to put her life back together.
TIME Magazine named Taylor Swift Person of the Year. Her success in 2023 has been phenomenal. Her Eras Tour is slated to become the highest-grossing stadium tour in history. She’s had four albums in the top 10 of the Billboard charts this year alone. This in addition to her many accomplishments that are far too numerous to list here. Her path has not been smooth and she has certainly faced adversity, but ultimately she has triumphed. And she’s done so with what seems like unshakable confidence in herself and her own abilities.
To quote TIME: “In a divided world, where too many institutions are failing, Taylor Swift found a way to transcend borders and be a source of light.”
In the same year, Britney Spears releases a memoir in which she recounts an incredible story of exploitation and abuse. That story is made even more remarkable by the fact that it happened to someone who, at the time, was very in the spotlight, yet no one truly saw what was going on. She became a hostage to her family and was forced to perform. They took over her life, her autonomy, her career, her finances, and when their control was threatened, sent her to an institution to be locked away. They wrote memoirs of their own, capitalizing on her fame and downfall. All to feed their own avarice.
Contrast this with the Swift family, who constantly show up for their daughter. They are her biggest fans and have made substantial sacrifices to allow her to realize her dreams, without being suffocating. On the contrary, they seem genuinely motivated by love and goodwill towards Taylor, and rejoice in seeing her flourish.
Both Taylor and Britney had great success early on. They broke records and appeared destined for Great Things. Two decades later, Taylor is TIME’s Person of the Year, while Britney spends most of her time isolated inside her home and putting out weird Instagram posts. She is, by her own admission, struggling to put her life back together.
One woman has a family that is consistently supportive and encouraging. The other a family that caged and exploited her.
I know we all know this, but it bears repeating: It is really, really hard to make a success of your life if your foundation is broken. It is hard to be “a source of light” when you are constantly fighting darkness, both inside and outside of yourself.
If you have a strong foundation of love, support and encouragement, you get a head start in life. You can devote time and energy to things that matter to you, things that help you develop your talents and gifts. You can focus on things that bring you joy, things that allow you to shine.
It boils down to this: You have to feel safe. If there are people in your corner, who have your back no matter what, with whom you feel protected, you can do anything.
If the people who are supposed to protect and keep you safe mistreat you, you break.
Is it possible to have success if your foundation is broken? Yes it is. But only if you work much harder than the person with the head start. Also, it is possible that you will run out of time or energy, simply because you will have to build your own foundation before you can do anything else. And sometimes we have to fight demons for a long time before we can claim our own power and begin to do that.
All of which should teach us that our traditional measure of success—money, fame, material trappings—is skewed. Perhaps success should be defined in terms of our ability to transcend our circumstances and make something of our lives. Perhaps Britney Spears’s success in coming out from under her father’s guardianship—of should I say proprietorship—is just as laudable as Taylor Swift’s Person of the Year award by TIME.
We each need to have our own yardstick for success and be proud of what we have achieved—sometimes because of where we came from, sometimes in spite of it.
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As an old friend of mine (who also had early trauma) says, "We feel like we have to be twice as good just to be in the same room with other people."
It takes a huge amount of energy.
Very well said.