Have Fun Will Travel

There is this whole world out there, and I'm dying. Dying for two things: to see it all and to change it. Which will win?

As I'm getting more and more settled into the job, I'm realizing how much I have to set goals for my professional life. I fear I will be in this same job for 10 years and unhappy after three. I know this job is not for the rest of my life, and I have to prepare myself now for what will come after I leave. That is why I created a freelance Web site (up for about two weeks now, woohoo!), and that is also why I'm taking another mediabistro course. I know I'm supposed to be watching my money and dropping close to $500 on a travel-writing course doesn't seem like the wisest decision, but I felt I had to do it.

Since college I've been doing things based on the assumption that I would one day be a travel writer -- that's why I did an independent study photo course on landscapes and how I convinced the HRM teacher to let me take Professional Beverage Management senior year. That's also why I'm working hard at my current job. All will put me into a position to know more about travel or be able to better land freelance writing gigs on places.

And then I had my STRS (state teachers retirement system) money that is sitting around...money that will fund my around-the-world trip if I decide to ever do it. As this travel-writing course approached, I rationalized that taking $500 of that money to do the course would be an investment of that cash. That money would help me earn loads of money on a trip.

Now enrolled, I wait for the first class. And question what I'm doing with my life. Do I want to just travel the globe for the next 50 years and write about it? No. I want to do journalism that makes a difference. While getting paid well to write about luxury spas, I want to be paid little to write about big problems. I want to change maybe not lives but at least thoughts. I want to inform people. I want the world to be a better place because I existed.

So, as I sat today in chuch and pondered my existence, I realized that travel writing will be my gateway. Well, actually, I remembered that...I remembered that the whole reason I wanted to return to journalism was to either launch my own publication and/or become a journalism professor who pushes her students to make their own changes.

I must remember why I'm doing what I'm doing. Money will come if I need it. Fulfillment...the earth will bring me that.