07 May Voted Most Likely to Succeed

I went to the State University of New York at Binghamton where I studied English literature and poetry and graduated in 1973. Initially, I seriously thought of making a career out of writing poetry. However, I soon realized that the number of submissions to poetry magazines was many multiples higher than the number of subscribers. Clearly, in the poetry business there were more mouths than ears. Thus, pursuing a career as a poet seemed a fool’s errand.

Upon graduating, many of my friends were surprised when I decided to go into the commercial world. Some asked me why I thought, after having not even taken one course in the subject, I could make a go of it in business. My simple view was that I was likely to succeed in whatever field I chose because I was informally voted as most likely to succeed. That is, in the animal world the most successful males in a group have access to all the females they desire. As I didn’t know anyone at my age who had bed more girls, I figured girls identified me as the most likely to be successful and whose genes should be passed on.