Work

People, specifically young people, seem to get confused about success. They believe there are overnight successes. This is a terrible misconception.

I too, felt like people seemed to win the success lottery, and then poof stardom. We don't hear about failure too often, unless it is from successful people. Then we secretly, or not so secretly, revel in their demise. 90% of startups fail. Entrepreneur's will crash 12 businesses before they have a success.

I have written four graphic novels, many short stories, five animations, an uncountable amount of drawings, and other random creative endeavors. Not too many people know me or my work. This tends to cripple many creatives at a certain point in their life, but I refuse this.

We can't compare ourselves to anybody, but I do find success stories to be motivating.

Mike Judge was an engineer, bassist, and creative guy. He didn't seem to know exactly where life was going to take him. He asked his mom for his grandfather's Super 8 camera when he was in his teens, but she denied him. Judge always wanted to play around with cartoons. In his late twenties he bought a Super 8 camera, and started to get to work. He produced a short cartoon, and had it in a festival in LA. He then found a way to get a copy to MTV's corporate office. MTV bought "Frog Baseball" from Judge. Remember when MTV was cool? If you do, then you are probably my age. "Frog Baseball" was, in essence, the pilot of "Beavis and Butthead". That's a huge success, and it begat more success for Judge.

There are so many people who had major success later in life. In fact, this is completely normal. Louise Bourgeois, Alex Katz, Raymond Petition, and Gary Panter all became successful after much failure. There is no reason that if you don't work hard you can't also be successful.

Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) talks about systems oriented people as opposed to goal oriented people. This basically means "don't put all your eggs in one basket". Gain skills, knowledge, and confidence. You may have always wanted to be a cartoonist, but might not hit the mark. You can still end up something else equally amazing that requires similar abilities.

Stay engaged. Don't be a little bitch! I just wanted to rattle your cage a bit there if you were starting to fall asleep by reading my little blog entry. I apologize for calling you, the reader, "a little bitch". Seriously though, don't be a little bitch. Go, and clear your head. Go for a jog, or train Brazilian Jiu jitsu. Come back to your life with openness. You won't be able to design your life to all of your preconceived modifications. You will be able to gather a diverse skill set that will allow you to jump on opportunity.

Also, do yourself a favor, and look at Liquid Television on MTV. MTV used to play music videos, amazing cartoons, and all things cool. If any of you youngsters are reading this entry, please do yourself a favor; revisit the 90's.