Originally published May 21, 2013
Dear Aspiring Anything,
Thank you for your interest in your dream. We are pleased to announce that there is a vacancy just for someone with your looks, attitude, and talents. This is exciting for us because in this age of superficial individuals in the spotlight, your genuine star-power really stands out.
That said, it is most unfortunate that we are unable to reach you. We tried calling the new phone number you just shared with us last month, and it has been disconnected or changed with no forwarding info. You have no résumé, despite several efforts of others to help you put one together. The last email we had on file for you bounced back, though you just sent us pictures from that address about a month ago when we last communicated. Finally, we reached out to the small handful of people you didn’t alienate the last time you “broke free and just did you.” They’ve been unable to get hold of you either.
We remember some rumblings from you on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram about doing your thing on your own because you can’t depend on anybody but yourself if you want to make it in this industry and in life. That was also a few weeks ago before we found that your social networks have been deleted or changed without a trace. Of course, from what we can see in your potential to be great at your dream, we thought you were just being ironic, so we didn’t pay much heed. (In fact, we had a bit of a laugh over it at the awards.) When we saw you getting encouragement to do your own thing in comments – from others also not following their dreams – we thought you’d consider the source and realize that your rants had gone on long enough. Apparently not.
There is an upside, though. If we never get hold of you to share with you the results of hard work, teamwork, humility, perseverance, and appreciation for a little help along the way, while you will certainly never be called a has-been, there is plenty of statistical bandwidth among the never-weres. If you’re still interested in being immortalized that way, you need do nothing more after reading this letter. Just keep doing what you’ve been doing: change your contact information as often as you do your underwear; proudly act as if you have already achieved greatness just because you’re not doing something that someone else is doing that you don’t like; continue to cap your own head up about the number of haters you’ve acquired, as if they can and should be measured like followers, fans, and friends; believe that humility weakens your position in life, rather than strengthens your resolve to achieve your dreams; ignore people who are genuinely interested in your success by feeding into the negativity of those who clearly aren’t; and periodically “cut people off” so you can try to make it on your in the toughest industries to break into.
Barring that, we look forward to hearing from you again because you really do have what it takes, smurf.
Forever in your service,
Success