It’s been reported that while in his cell following his arrest for drag racing in Florida, Justin Bieber was crying like a baby.  However, following his release, he was all showman, waving to his fans.  Justin Bieber has been in the news far more often for his antics in the last year than for his singing, particularly within the past several months.  No doubt he’s a talented kid and could, should and does have everything anyone could ever want and therein lies the problem.

Assuming Bieber wasn’t verbally, physically, or sexually abused as a child and assuming his mother or father weren’t alcoholics, he’s just a young kid who happens to be able to sing.  Of course these are large assumptions but if any of them were real, his behavior could be easily excused or at least understood.  But let’s assume that isn’t the case and that he’s just a normal kid who happened to make it big.  Then we can ask, what’s his problem?

The answer to that is quite simple actually, Too Much, Too Soon!  No matter how well-adjusted, human beings need to strive for something.  When you reach the pinnacle as quickly as Bieber has, he’s only 19, consciously or not, he would need to be asking, is this all there is?  As a 19-year-old, where do go from a Lamborghini?  What is there to shoot for?  Where does the excitement come from?  Anything, no matter how great, becomes old, tired or boring, even a Lamborghini, particularly when you’re so young.

I grew up in a neighborhood where many of my friends received fancy cars when they graduated from high school.  Corvette, Porshe, Ferrari and even an Aston Martin.  I was driving a 7-year-old Pontiac Firebird with manual windows and an 8-track-tape player.  I didn’t buy my first car until I was married, a Ford Escort Station Wagon followed by a Mitsubishi Gallant.  After the Escort, I thought I had made it when I drove off in the Gallant.  I was 38 by the time I bought my first “luxury car”.  When I sat in that Volvo S-80, I felt like I had arrived. That’s what Bieber is lacking.  He won’t ever have that feeling of accomplishment because it has no meaning or value and that’s a terrible place to be.  Not coincidentally, several of my friends were so unhappy they turned to drugs, failed out of school or died tragically.  Children like Bieber are often unhappy because the reality can never equal the expectation, not when you have anything and everything you want, so early in life.

What made the Bill Gates’ and Steve Jobs’ of the world so successful were their failures, not their successes.  It made them hungrier and more driven.  If Apple simply took off in 1984 the Apple story might look very different than it does now.  So the answer to all of this is that Bieber’s mommy and daddy need to pull in the reins on their child despite the fact he’s legally an adult and force him to put his life back together.  Bieber needs a time out and a do-over and if his parents are smart, they will attempt to take control of his life.  He is in fact still just a child and he thinks like a child.  Obviously he doesn’t see the consequences of his actions so he must be shown by the people that love him the most.  Otherwise, they might be looking back wondering why they hadn’t tried harder as they lower him in to his final resting place.