“Better to be born lucky than good,’ goes the old aphorism. Do you think there’s an exchange rate? Because, if there is, I’d be interested in trading some ‘good’ for ‘lucky.’ I’m cocky enough to believe I’ve a surfeit of ‘good,’ but right now I don’t feel like there’s a whole lot of ‘lucky’ floating around and waiting for a moment to make me happy.
The regular reader (hello, regular reader, how are you? That’s nice. The kids? Oh, excellent. Mind how you go) will have noticed that I don’t often blog about personal stuff. OK, so I don’t often blog about work stuff either – I mostly blog about inconsequential shit, come to think of it – but I certainly don’t blog about personal stuff. This likely explains the modest audience size of this blog, but also why I’m not ashamed to admit its existence to work colleagues. It’s a trade-off, see?
In a mild break from tradition, however, I’ll make a brief note. Pretty much purely in the interests of soliciting sympathy, you understand. Here we go:
Today, after a bit of a palaver, I singularly failed to win either the job, or the girl.
Result: I’ve had better days.
That is all.
Cheer up you old bugger.
Life goes in cycles – you’ve just done a triumphant, prestigious thing at the RI. You’re talented, nice and good looking (in a geeky way – but a lot of women find that attractive apparently).
And TV is a fickle, stupid world, where it’s often not to do with talent, it’s to do with who you know. I didn’t get the last job I was up for because the commissioning editor wanted her friend to do it!
So relax, enjoy time off. And believe you’ll meet the right person one day. (Alternatively set your sights a bit lower and settle for any old thing. It worked for me…)
Love Patrick (not the physical sort)
I’ve spotted a natty aphorism here which I think I can press into service. It probably doesn’t strictly fit, but I’ve never let that stand in the way of sharing a pleasing idea.
Luck is the return we get on our portfolio of good and wise actions. And although have no control on the underlying rate of return behind these investements, we do get to decide how leveraged we want our position to be.
(In other words, you could make yourself immune to the ebbs and flows of luck by getting a job as an accountant and a nice 4-bed in Surrey. Or you could become a city lawyer and abtain from being either good or lucky. But who would want that?)
Jonathan,
Become an idle homosexual.
As somebody (not me) once said – “I don’t sleep with women because I’m gay. And I don’t sleep with men because all men are pigs”
I realise that that’s not that helpful, but I don’t like to hear that you are down in the dumps.
Come and visit, bring some shoes that need shining, we’ll buy a copy of the Wall Street Journal and go read it while we get our shoes shined. If that doesn’t cheer you up I don’t know what will. And I’m being serious.
Chin up old pal!!