Hmmm, have you found your life compass and made your peace with it?
Many, many years ago (40 plus to be more precise) after graduating from a Community College, I worked for about 18 months as a reporter-photographer for a weekly, community newspaper. I was a one-man band working six or seven days a week and covering a lot of miles to generate enough content to fill each week’s edition. It was a young person’s job to be certain.
Ultimately I decided that journalism was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Part of that decision was a feeling that I was not satisfied with my education. I enrolled in university, completed an Honours BA and came out feeling more well-rounded.
There was a secondary but also important motivator for my decision that came out of the nature of the job of a journalist. A tornado went through the rural area in the region I covered. Bill Davis, Premier of Ontario at the time, and one of his Cabinet Ministers went on a helicopter tour of the affected areas to get a sense of what help was needed.
A bevy of journalists including myself hooked up with Bill Davis and his cabinet minister where their helicopter landed in a school yard. We became part of their entourage while they drove through the area and talked to people affected by the tornado.
At one of their stops on this tour, I was fortunate to position myself in the right spot to get a close-up photograph of Bill Davis, his Cabinet Minister, the local County Reeve and a husband and wife whose farm had been devastated by the tornado.
That photograph ultimately ran on the front page of the next edition of the community newspaper for which I worked. It was a very good photograph from a journalism perspective. The distraught expression on the faces of the couple told the human side of the tragedy better than any words could.
But to very honest, I felt guilty about that couple’s agony being splashed across the front page of the newspaper. They had suffered enough in the tragedy and did not need to have their suffering showcased for all to see.
I realized at that point that if I was going to be a career journalist, I would have to take that kind of photograph on a regular basis. Furthermore, I would have to interview people at some of the worst times in their life when answering questions was the last thing they felt like doing. I could not see myself becoming that person.
Let me say that I have great respect for journalists who ply their trade diligently, witness human tragedy on an ongoing basis and are able to report on it with empathy. I have no respect for journalists who are only interested in earning a spot on the front page, or the lead story on the evening news, and view the people involved as just a means to an end to advance their career.
The 18 months I spent as a journalist was a defining experience in my life. Finding your compass, from the perspective of values and of what gives your life purpose, is perhaps the most important step in becoming the person you are meant to be.
It was not an easy balance to achieve 40 years ago and is infinitely more difficult in the crazy, chaotic and unpredictable world in which we live. I am so very happy to be retired! Kudos to those of you who are in the midst of that struggle and being purposeful about finding the right balance.
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .
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