Overachieving should be a crime. Except that all the people who make up laws are probably overachievers themselves.
My journalism lecturer told us a story about a former student who now works at The Australian. This student supposedly met the editor at an awards night – the student won Young Journalist of the Year – and three weeks later, had a permanent, full-time position at one of Australia’s most influential dailies. ‘So you see,’ says my lecturer, ‘anyone can do it, you just have to give it a go.’
This story makes me want to crawl into a gutter and die. Seriously. Is this actually supposed to motivate me? I don’t want to hear about over-achievers and their amazing…achievements. I want to hear about writers who use variations of the word ‘achieve’ twice in the same sentence. I want to hear about average people who have amazing things happen to them with little or no effort on their part.
If I wanted to inspire people, this is the story I would tell:
I know a guy who works for The Australian. He was a journalism student, just like you. He went to the pub every week, could never think of anything to write about, and what he did manage to write was pretty average, quite frankly. But he didn’t let that stop him. He just kept on drinking, thinking and writing (in that order).
One day, he went to an awards night to watch some other guy win and ran into the editor of The Australian in the toilets. He mentioned he was a journalism student and the editor said, ‘You want a job?’ He was all, ‘Shit, yeah!’ And the editor was like, ‘Yo homie, that’s cool bro, i dig it.’ (Apparently, the editor of The Australian is a G.)
The next day, he had a full-time, permanent position. You see his name in the paper all the time. His stuff is still not that great, but no one seems to notice. He’s a real success story.
By the way, this happened to, like, seven other people I know, who were all completely unexceptional too. It just goes to show: anyone can make it, you just have to have a go.
PS. If anyone out there has a story like this – a true one, I mean – I’d really like to hear it.
