Jeff Seiler: Dave Sim & Me

JEFF SEILER:
This is an unusual entry.

When I was working in the greater Dallas metropolitan area in the summer of 2004, as I was a substitute teacher out of work, I signed up with a company which attempted to sell electricity door-to-door (well, service contracts, that is, following deregulation of the existing monopoly). It was a 3-month job, before I could go back to teaching school, and I asked Dave Sim if he could give any advice to me and my fellow workers. I posted this on the bulletin board the day that I received it, and it was gone the very next day.

Surprise.

Anyway, here's what Dave sent to me to post:

Welcome to the way the real world operates. To be a success in the real world, it is necessary to be a good learner; a quick study when it comes to the basics; a thoughtful and introspective initiate who absorbs information like a sponge, processes it, and continuously assesses and reassesses and re-reassesses everything, as impediments present themselves. Good learners quickly lose any sense of entitlement and know that they have to do everything on their own. Any help you get from outside is likely to be accidental and should never be counted on to any significant degree.

Picture yourself as a planet. Your talent is your molten core. It is up to you to make an environment for that molten core which is conducive to growth, which will permit your talent to flourish in a hostile world. There is any number of ways to go about this. The only way to find out if you have the determination and work ethic to see it through to its conclusion is to make a start and stick with it.