The First Inspirational Speaker
Our first speaker that actually, truly motivated me, Andrea McCarren, spoke with our class this morning. She, like so many speakers before, suggested that we write and report everyday. But this is the first time I’ve actually run straight to my macbook and my blog after a class. As I’m writing this blog post, I’m “breaking one of her rules”, or disregarding a very helpful tip, in so many ways. I’m listening to Vamp on my Spotify, I’m chatting with Erik on Facebook and I’m reading live feeds on Twitter while speaking with Tori. Andrea McCarren’s thumb rule is to give herself 20 minutes of offline time to get the writing going, and by the end of that time, she will be so engaged in her writing that she will extend with one more hour. Anyways, I really appreciated her inspirational speech, and I’m going to give you a brief recap.
First of all, it is possible to have a life and be a journalist. McCarren, having a family and actually travelling with Bill Clinton at nine months pregnant, is a living proof of that. All the other speakers saying that your life as a journalist is going to be a living hell, a shift between crying, puking and no sleep, they were starting to bother me.
I might have mentioned before, at least to those at home whom I speak with from time to time, that the work ethics preached by most of our speakers here don’t suit me; I’m not willing to give up my friends and my family, and I have not known since age 3 that I wanted to be a journalist. I still don’t know that, and according to a lot of people over here, I’m not cut out to work in the media busniess. At least that’s how their message comes across to me. I don’t know, and I certainly don’t hope, that that’s what they really think.
McCarrens view on work ethics suits me better. She thinks that by doing what you like, and doing it the best you can, you’ll stay in the game. Perfect! Because when people ask me “what I want to be when I grow up”, my most frequent answer is “the best at what I do”. Kind of arrogant, maybe, but I believe that doing what you’re good at makes you happy, and being happy with what you’re doing makes you even better.
Further, McCarren talked about choosing your battles. Know when to pick a fight, and when to let things pass. Most of the time, sulking and screaming and yelling isn’t going to get you anywhere, so why bother? It’s a waste of time and energy. And, from my perspective, it might cost you good relationships.
I’m not saying that you should let everything go in order for everyone to like you (which is something I might do from time to time), but both McCarren and a lot of our speakers have stressed the importance of networking, and having contacts. It’s a fine line between voicing your oppinion and keeping quiet in the right situations, but basically, just consider what you want to say and how you’re going to put it.
In short, my thoughts about going into journalism was revived today. I don’t know how, or when, or even if, but at least it’s still an option. I was almost wanting not to be in the media business, just to prove a point: I don’t want to be the person that these people are telling me I have to be. Good thing that not everybody is like that.
