I watched an episode of Love Monkey a couple of nights ago that really made me think. Tom, the main character who is an A & R rep for True Vinyl Records, discovers an unbelievably talented singer named Ray while Ray is singing at his father's funeral. Ray always wanted to be discovered. But after trying, and failing, he's settled into his life as a pizza maker in his father's well known restaurant in Brooklyn. He feels responsible for continuing the shop after his father dies, and he's quite content in doing so. And he's also just about to get married to a woman who has a little girl that he adores.
Along comes Tom who offers Ray the chance of a lifetime—a shot at a record deal. Ray reaches under the counter at the restaurant and pulls out a lock box that contains a rejection letter Tom sent to him six years ago. Of course, Tom doesn't remember it, but Ray sure did. And it seems to have made him bitter. In reality, I'm guessing that it was a culmination of rejections that made him bitter, but when a person who has rejected you in the past is looking you straight in the eye and says he's interested now, it's not all that easy to forget.
Eventually, when Tom gets Ray into the recording studio, Ray catches the spirit again but then he's faced with a difficult decision. Sign a recording contract, record and album, and then go out on the road for three months or pass it all up because he'd rather continue to run the restaurant and be available for his new wife and child. In the end, Tom realizes that Ray's heart isn't in the music (on a professional level), so he works out a deal for Ray's music to be performed by other artists while Ray lives the life he's really interested in.
It was a quite moving episode and I still can't believe that the show didn't make it on CBS. The writing is unbelievable and the characters seemed to be perfectly cast. Sadly though, its run on VH1 is about to end. I'm finding out that I'm not the only one who enjoyed the show. I found this petition that is currently signed by almost 8,000 people asking for it to remain on the air. But enough of my lamenting about the demise of the show. Oh wait…did I mention that Love Monkey already has its own Wikipedia page? Okay, now I'm done.
But seriously, rather than talking about Ray's impressive decision to walk away from the music career he always thought he wanted, I want to talk about his rejection letter. The letter that he was able to pull out on a moments notice and thrust at Tom. I wonder how many of us could do the same thing? Maybe we couldn't do it with such a tangible object (or maybe we could), but most of us have at least one such instance locked away deep inside that we never talk about but we can access immediately if necessary.
If you are anything like me, you probably even derive some motivation from such pain. Sort of an "I"ll show you" sort of thing. But motivation shouldn't be rooted in revenge—even if the revenge isn't totally spiteful. (Most revenge is more subtle, in that, we like to make people squirm—sort of like Ray did to Tom). Instead, motivation ought to be rooted in the satisfaction that comes from pursuing the right thing. We'll never be able to right every perceived wrong that has been committed against us. And attempting to do so will only keep us from living life to its fullest right now.
