Where are You

Pack your bags and head out.

It's one of the toughest things to do, especially when doing it on the fly. What's tougher is not knowing where you're going, what you'll find there or who you'll meet.

But it's what a lot of college graduates face every single year. Job seekers can't be picky because it seems that this economy rewards ANYONE who simply HAS a job. What job and where it is doesn't even play in the minds of a lot of those entering the job market.

This is extremely true for those going into journalism, a degrading form of person plugged into society for the sole reason of lying to everyone else for whom they write (often tagged as "the audience" or "key demographic"). They start out their freshman year with ambitions aimed high. If they're lucky, the hope lasts the entire first year.

Then professors give up trying to sell. There's the "you won't make money until you're 35, if you're lucky" line. Or recently there's the "you need to know how to do everything because you're going to have to produce 18 different types of media on the one story" phrase that's taking the schools by storm.

But the one most prevalent in the radio-television business is the "figure out where you want to live and go about 1,000 miles in another direction to find where you'll ACTUALLY end up" nugget. They're told not to worry too much, though, because they can work their way to their final destination by the end of a career by working extremely hard, meeting as many people in the business as possible and sucking up to those people with hope that some day they'll be in a position of power looking at a resume with a recognizable name.

Some take a different approach. They don't really figure out what's coming right away. They might even do something different from the end result they seek just to do something new. It puts them at odds with a definition of "achievement" while, at least for the time being, sending them in a "wrong" direction. But the worry doesn't come in the form of finding a job or even circulate around the occupation whatsoever.

The worry in these seekers comes with going somewhere completely new. They don't know anyone. They don't even know where the closest grocery store is. And, most importantly, they don't know where they fit in because the world is altogether new. Some pieces of a puzzle are easier to place than others and people are the same way.

Some people can jump right into their place in the puzzle of society. Others have a few sides that are too intricate to just slip right into a spot. And anyone who has put a puzzle together knows that shoving pieces into a spot in the puzzle where they don't belong only makes for hardship later when it's revealed that the piece really, truly didn't belong there.

The real point is that putting together the same puzzle over and over is OK with some people. But for most, the completion of a brand new challenge is what makes the activity interesting. Those in broadcasting are all but forced to do this or take a job in something that just involves writing. Not settling is one of the toughest things to do in this life. But trying to be the puzzle piece that fits is one of the hardest things to avoid. If you're not in the right spot, don't worry -- to finish the puzzle, you'll find your spot.

So pack your bags and head out. There's a puzzle in this big world waiting for you so it can be solved.