Do You Want You Marriage Counselor to Be Happily Married for 30 Years or Struggling Through His 4th Marriage?

There's an old saying that you learn from making mistakes and failuring more than from succeeding. I think we all basically agree with that but does it follow that you learn better from other people's failures than their successes? People who have advice columns and who are in the business of helping people are people with experience who have ultimately experience success but is their road to success generally more or less curvy than normal or ideal?
This morning on the radio, Kid Kraddick and company were talking about how big name celebrities who get in trouble with the law, mostly doing drugs, wind up eventually speaking to kids as a role model as part of restoring their image and supposedly getting back on the right track themselves. I think this discussion got started with TI being arrested yesterday and Paris Hilton last week on possession of marijuana and cocaine. They likely will end up being some sort of spokesperson for some anti-drug organization and be an example of what not to do.

Anyway, I'm not so much concerned with them in particular or people in drug rehab but for the more common person seeking guidance in relationships or careers, is it generally better for the counselor to be someone who found success right away or someone who stumbled and mis-stepped and had several setbacks before being successful. I have no idea who writes the dear Abby columns or whether marriage counselors are people with more or less relationship success than the average person, but I think that would be something interesting to find out. I kind of think someone who had been married a few times, has a few kids, and now finally is in a good marriage would make the best counselor because he's experienced more and can more likely identify with the patient. Likewise, are career counselors mostly people who made it through college on schedule and found jobs relatively easily or are they more likely to be people who changed majors several times, took 6 years to get a bachelor's degree, struggled to find a suitable job, possibly changed jobs a lot before finding their niche?
One part of me thinks publicity for wrong-doings should be minimized - that making a headline out of people being arrested for drug abuse gives other messed up people the idea that they can be famous if they do something dumb. We should publicize the people for doing things well - the 6:00 news should contain all positive stories rather than the way it is not with 90% of the news including someone getting arrested. Another part of me thinks that showing these people and their ensuing punishment might make an example of them and help people learn lessons without having to make the mistake themselves. At least, with some it will help improve the spectator's self-esteem by seeing someone who is even more screwed up. But people are hard-headed - they're still going to have to make some mistakes themselves, often several times, before getting on a good track.

Catching Up With Grey's Anatomy

Tonight I’ve done a lot of catching up on Grey’s Anatomy. I saw relationships being torn apart because people are so concerned with their jobs and others trying to force them into having more of a social life. It kind of scares me because it’s people like Cristina Yang that I am most attracted to. She is so concerned with being the best cardiothoracic surgeon in the world but she hides her emotions and pushes people away when there is any hint of coming in between her and her work.

The vast majority of the women I have ever been attracted to are highly motivated career-oriented future lawyers and doctors who often seem as though they care more about their careers than family or the possibility of a potential family interfering with work. I value family a lot and would put family over my career any time. I’m certainly motivated to have a career but not so much that it totally consumes my life. I tend to think I have a good balance of work and play. Maybe this is just a product of going to Georgia Tech and working for the government. While I also tend to think that I would be okay with moving to wherever my future spouse finds her dream job and her working 60 hour weeks or more, a part of me thinks this difference in philosophy is going to cause major problems – not an ego problem because she’d be working more and making more money but because I would be more needy, needy of her companionship and her being too busy to spend enough time with me. What attracts me to people like this?

The TV shows and movies I like most are largely about people who are so consumed with their work that they become incapable of having healthy relationships. Or they’re about people realizing that all the effort they’ve spent making a good career for themselves really tears apart some wonderful relationships. Maybe the really brilliant people in the world aren’t meant to have love or they’ll only be happy with someone who is equally consumed with their work but I don’t believe that is the case. Or maybe once they get out of school, their views on relationships will change. When I was at Tech, they said that we get our life back 2-3 years after graduation, once we’ve settled down in a job. But I haven’t changed, at least not in terms of how much free time I have or how I view relationships. School was not time consuming for me. It’s not because I’m that smart or didn’t get good grades – there were tons of smarter people than me at Tech and my grades and my ability to have a balanced life were just fine. I dunno. We like who we like and we can’t help it. Someday something will work out.