Becoming an Icon Should Totally NOT Be a Career Move

I hear Beyonce wants to be an icon.

(Actually, make that ICON. It looks better when you make tiny words look more important in ALL CAPS and in bold.)

This isn’t news, actually. Yet, I can’t help but laugh a little when the  Beyonces of the world talk about career goals. It’s like hearing Paris Hilton discuss the difference between Nicole Richie and any BFF she picks up for the week (and she knows the difference, Kathy Griffin).

Big haired pop stars and B-actresses would be absolutely remiss if they didn’t mention their desires to become iconic.  In fact, morphing into a legend in their own time is a resume buster. I guess after achieving mega-super duper star status, attaining a deity like homage amongst the masses is the next logical step up.

I thought world domination went out with the recession?

I’m sure somehow Beyonce deserves to become an ICON for all her Sasha-Fierce-fabulosity. Nevertheless, the aspiration seems dully one note.

The media hammers with reminders of Micheal Jackson’s and Farrah Fawcett’s iconic positioning. It’s like corporate promotion for the rich and famous, except you’re dead.

Then, the poor word gets thrown around like the f-bomb in Glengarry Glen Ross.

I’m exhausted.

Striving to be an ICON is bloated with mass narcissism. If unwavering, uncritical and fanatical devotion is a career goal, you probably foam at the mouth while engaging in midnight binges on bacon flavored mayonnaise and pork lard sandwiches.

After all, gross over indulgence is the center of your universe – not to mention the high caloric intake. You might also like mindless zombies.

Wanting nothing but devotion probably makes you a little dangerous. You have so little invested with other people, you won’t be able to change when it will be the most meaningful or useful.

That’s bad news in my book.

And, if you’re planning for devotion, you’re planning for other people’s whims. That slippery slope will seriously mess up any other original planning you had for your career all along.

Whether you’re Beyonce or not, be willing to be unlikeable or a minority (or un-ICONic). It’s not a bad thing – it’s a different thing. You can still change, even while wearing your tiny little Freakum Dress (not the boys, so much).

Why make goals that must perch so precariously on the whims of other people?

What kinds of whims?  Ummmm….the (fickle, tempestuous and emotional) kinds that make you an icon.

Devotion is a smidgen overrated. It’s too superficial to be consistently relied upon. It always comes at the price of grabbing  (and keeping) someone else’s nano second attention span.

And, whims are as wimpy as they sound.

I think Beyonce’s hair alone can boost her to “icon” status without them.