Has anyone seen that new Charlie Kaufman film Synecdoche? It’s pretty great. There’s a scene where the aging protagonist/writer is shown a best-selling book of apparent genius written by a four-year-old named Horace Azpiazu. You see, there’s always someone younger than you, doing something better than you, more authentically than you, and winning more praise than you. So chill the fuck out, realise that you’re younger than a lot of people and get to work. Because Stan reckons you’ve much more to offer than just enthusiasm and a will to work for nuthin’.

Big news from the fourth estate this week, with the appointment of 23-year-old Ben Naparstek as editor of The Monthly magazine.

Yes you read that correctly – he’s 23 years old!

So I guess that puts him in the Junior demographic. Except he doesn’t see himself that way and neither should you.

Talent is talent. Ability is ability. Age should be irrelevant.

As Naparstek himself said, “I’m old enough to be well used to people telling me I’m young.”

Despite what he himself thinks, Narparstek is very young for the position he now holds.

Yet he is, if memory serves, two years older than Aussie advertising legend Siimon Reynolds was when he was made Creative Director of Grey in Sydney.

“I’ve been an adult for, what is it, five years now,” said Narparstek. “I’m 23. How much longer is this going to continue?”

Obviously Ben Narparstek doesn’t consider himself a junior. So why do you?

If you have talent and ability, you’re just as capable of having a great idea as someone ten or twenty years older than you.

So rather than thinking of yourself as someone looking to get a foot in the door, start selling yourself as someone who can contribute to a business.

Someone with so much more to offer than just enthusiasm and a low salary expectation.