LIVING THE HIGH LIFE
Born during the Kennedy presidency, I grew up as one of the first generation of children exposed to a wide variety of advertising, particularly television ads. A few months ago I saw a TV commercial that featured an ad jingle from my youth:
“If you’ve got the time,
we've got the beer (Miller Beer)
Miller tastes too good to hurry through
But when it's time to relax
Miller stands clear (beer after beer)
If you've got the time (you've got the time)
We've got the beer (Miller beer).”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_HzThfudIk
I hadn’t heard the tune, written by the late advertising legend Bill Backer, in decades. Yet, once I heard it again, nostalgia kicked in and old memories flooded my mind. I recalled singing it with my catholic elementary school classmates in Milwaukee when we took the bus on field trips in the mid-70’s. (That probably wouldn’t happen today, for a lot of reasons I need not elaborate.) It is a great jingle. Ad exec Linda Kaplan, a principal for the Thaler Group, told Forbes in 2010 that jingles must "… have huge sticking power. A jingle is not successful if you listen to it once and like it. You have to listen to it and want to sing it. Essentially you become the advertiser for the brand." Miller’s ad agency dragged that jingle out of the archives in 2016, and since I heard it again that catchy tune singing the praises of The Champagne of Beers stuck in my mind like a piece of gum on the bottom of my shoe.
It got me thinking about the other things we allow to stick in our minds, pernicious things. We allow a lot of negative messages to stick in our minds. “You can’t…”, “You never…” You won’t…” Sometimes others toss those missives our way, but often we sow them ourselves. Frequently those negative messages are followed by an explanation using the conjunction “because”, and often the explanations given are simply incorrect and use weak tropes, stereotypes or biases. For example, “I/You can’t achieve X because I/you am/are Y.” Unfortunately, Y usually cites some gender, racial, ethnic, socio-economic or other characteristic that has absolutely nothing to do with X or our ability to achieve X.
We don’t have to accept that negativity or let it sink roots in our consciousness. We all have the innate capacity as human beings to control what we allow into our minds and to excise those negative thoughts and limitations that we plant or allow others to plant in the fertile soil of our psyche. We control how much sunlight and water we give them. As a good friend once told me, “It’s not simply a case of ‘mind over matter’. Sometimes it’s mind/heart/spirit over matter.”
Sometimes we may not be strong enough to pluck those weeds on our own. But with the help of family, trusted friends, counselors and spiritual guides we can get rid of those negative weeds. And, when we do that, we will really be living the high life.
CEC