What‘s to gain from the Such is Life Documentary

Over two nights in Perth; “Such is Life”, a documentary was shown on television with over 2,000,000 viewers tuning in on the first night. The following day there was widespread discussions all over Australia. The impact was huge on the community and as a father of 3 young children it really smacked me in the face and made me assess what I am doing in my role as a father. It also made me think back to my days as a cricketer playing sport and associating with the elite on and off the field and realise how easy it is to go off the rails.

When documentaries like “Such is Life” are viewed, learning from them is absolutely imperative. Relating Ben’s battles with his addiction especially at the peak of the problem when he was delisted, with my battles encountering a life threatening illness actually reinforced some valuable lessons learnt, developed and actually employed in my life and now have started passing them onto my family.

What wasn’t happening in Ben Cousin’s life throughout his glory days was a lack of application to universal laws or principles or whatever you want to call them. Instead he gained strength and motivation from pleasurable experience that was quick and from external sources. He was feeding his desires by bringing in external influences. Unfortunately his was drugs and the only way to get more happiness or pleasure was more.

As soon as we rely on external influences for happiness, success or whatever we want in life, we set ourselves up for failure, because you aren’t relying on universal laws or guidelines to keep you on the right path to wherever you want to go. Ben had no self awareness or conscience for the people around him, the damage to himself as a person, the football club and the youth and impressionable people that adored him. The attributes of self awareness, having a conscience and even serving others or a greater cause are all common traits of successful people and Ben wasn’t doing and didn’t possess any of these.

Unfortunately in Ben’s and other addicts, drugs severely interfere in your brain’s functionality. In simple terms what was happening in his brain was his natural feedback mechanism for recognising and receiving pleasure was now being influenced by nuclear influences. Nuclear influences are so much stronger than natural ones so it is no fault of the brain to pull out all stops to get more and more and more. Recognising and receiving pleasure in our brain is a survival mechanism. It used to be drinking water, bursts of activity (running from things that want to kill us), sex (survival of the species) and food was what pleasure in the brain bought to us. Now the brain gets all manner of pleasures that are unnatural such as added sugar, drugs, alcohol and caffeine to name a few. Ben and any other drug addict are re programming their brains to get their next hit which is now their brains newly formed survival instinct.

The lessons learnt from the “Such is Life” documentary should be plentiful and varied as has already been highlighted by the responses in the media. I have put three of mine together to share and hopefully spark more thought on your behalf.

1. Develop self awareness around your emotions and how they are dictating and controlling your life. Is anger, resentment, pleasure, happiness or even sadness which are all emotions making you reactive instead of proactive? Look at food if you are trying to lose weight.
   
   
2. Having principles/guidelines in our own lives to guide you are important. Motivation is longer lasting and more powerful when it is related to a deep and internal value or mission dear to you. Take money for example; if that is your motivator and sense of happiness, what happens when you go broke, lose your money or are unable work for a period of time losing the capacity to earn money you are going to be unhappy, unmotivated and under the control of money.
   
   
3. Address all aspects of your life that are most important to you to ensure a more fulfilling life can be achieved and maintained. Most importantly link all of the important parts to your life to your mission and values because when things get testing (which they will) you are getting pleasure and fulfillment out of serving a greater good – not just satisfying desires from day to day and simply surviving.

I hope for Ben’s sake he can keep his life going forward and if the reasoning behind showing this documentary are to serve others. He can live a life to serve others and make a real difference to society, but he will need to follow principles, guidelines or universal laws (whatever you want to call them) otherwise he may just end up getting his kicks in the wrong way again. I hope he chooses the right path.