But What Is Your Real Agenda?
by Molly-Ann Leikin

I met a woman at my health club recently who complained for weeks about a sore shoulder. A world-class wimp when it comes to pain, I believe in eliminating it ASAP, which means immediately going to the doctor for a treatment or a shot, even if it's Christmas Eve or the end of the world, which, to a person of the Jewish faith, is often the same time. But my acquaintance didn't like doctors. Still, she complained and complained. I finally said to her that I understood how uncomfortable it was to be in pain, that I supported her healing, but truthfully, I was at a loss to know how to help, since she refused to do anything about it, except make it worse.

Seems that after a year of being unable to move her right arm, she was standing in the gym with a group of L.A. Lakers on their day off and felt compelled to shoot some hoops, in an attempt to show Shaq she was a strong, modern woman, not just a cheerleader-bimbette type. This, of course, exacerbated her injury. She called me absolutely every dawn in tears, saying how badly her shoulder hurt. Why I was chosen for this lucky message instead of Mr. O'Neal is beyond me. I am a doctor, sure, but a song doctor, and while I've occasionally used my SONGMD plates to get preferred parking at the Greek Theatre, claiming I was on call that evening...what I know about fixing shoulders ends with chicken soup.

I finally told this woman that I knew lots of good doctors all over the Westside, and could recommend at least ten. If she didn't go to see them, I couldn't help her further. So she made appointments, then complained that the doctors either kept her waiting too long, had old magazines, hit on her, didn't even try to hit on her - or worse, wore bad neckwear. She never trusted their diagnoses and refused all treatment.

In spite of the tears, in spite of the pain, I realized that this woman was getting much more out of being sick, out of not being able to live the new life she claimed she wanted, move to a new apartment, start dating again, and find a job. She was getting a much bigger payoff being sick than being healthy. Which is pathetic. I confronted her with what I felt to be her agenda, and she was furious with me. Nonetheless, it's been two months and through the grapevine I've heard she's rescheduled her surgery seven times. So what is her real agenda?

The mind is very powerful. You can create what you want. Good or bad. Just like it says in "Spontaneous Healing", by Andrew Weil, MD. You can heal your body, you can heal your life, you can heal your career, too.

The reason I'm so focussed on this agenda issue, is writers call me all the time saying they want to be successful and then do everything possible to make sure it will never happen. Like Carl Sagan's ex-wife, who was in a workshop with me years ago. She wanted desperately to write screen plays, and was a very good writer. But you could make book on the fact that her printer would blow up in the middle of the night, hours before her script was due. Don't you think a writer who really wanted to be successful would either get the printer fixed or buy a new one? I think she was still programmed for failure, because it's hard to compete with a man who was as successful as her ex.

Assuming none of you has overwhelming health issues or is married to a Nobel Laureate, please, make sure you know what you want - what you really want. If you notice yourself taking action or non-action that seems unproductive with that goal, change it immediately. Continuous failure can be a comfortable, no risk way of life. Don't let that happen to you.

And if you're a beautiful, sensational Latina singer/writer with a world-class voice and a dozen great songs you've just rewritten for six months and the whole world is waiting for your new demo, don't, please, don't cut off all your long, spectacular black hair in South Miami the day before your meeting at Arista.

This SONGMD can't fix that, no matter where I park at the Greek Theatre.

© 1999 Songwriting Consultants, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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