Losing it

Because you're good enough, smart enough and doggone it, people like you.

 

I've discovered the older you get, the more you gravitate toward just doing the basics. That's not all bad. There is such a critter as "overwriting" and I cringe at some of my earlier stories in which I strived for a Pulitzer for a fastpitch softball feature. Just save your best stuff for when it's called for. That is all.

 

That's a great point. What I think tends to happen for me, though, is that I become entrenched in that mode where you just do the basics more and more often, including when you need to be doing something a little extra.

 

You're going to pull out of it next week, Platy.

I can see it already. The subject matter and adrenaline will take you out of the power-dive burnout you're in right now.

At least for a while.

 

Dammit, you're still good enough to work at the Plain-Dealer.

 

Not that good. Get in line, pal.

 

Word, brother. I have to give myself pep talks all the time along that vein, because the journalism/SE combo (and believe me, being an SE only sometimes bumps up against journalism) can be a grind. I have trouble telling people what I do -- other than "I help make that, every day". And it beats digging a ditch or laying a roof. Those fuckers have real jobs.

rb