"Why Do You Round Everything Up?"

Listening: "Debarge Interlude" (Live From Stanford, CA), Teedra Moses, Live From The Jungle Vol. 2

I used to think about immature things
you know like do you love me, do you want me, are you gonna
call me like you said you would, is this really your real phone number
But you know I'm a man now baby a grown man and I came a long way
and experience taught me one thing... taught me to hold on to my love

-From El DeBarge, "I Call Your Name"

It's been a year and a half since I graduated from college and began my career in television news. For so long I was just happy just to be a working journalist. For the first six months I was a broadcast apprentice pretty much learning everything there was to learn about various jobs in the newsroom: assignment editor, web producer, news writer, and field producer. When my apprenticeship ended I was flattered that I was asked to stay on as a news writer and then fill-in as a web producer when two of my colleagues were out on maternity leave at the same time.

Lately, I've begun feeling like I've hit a brick wall, that I've stopped growing, and stopped having fun. That led me to have a conversation with our weekend morning anchor this morning. One of the first things she asked me was how old I was? 23 One of the next questions she asked was the longest I'd been away from home? Three months. She rounded my age up to 24 and equated my internship in Illinois to summer camp. She went on to challenge me to evaluate what I really want to do, know where I want to be, and develop a plan of action to get there.

When I asked her "why do you round everything up?" She said because you have to think about the future. She's right, I can't go back in time and unring any bells, or undo anything I've done. I can plan, be aggressive, and move forward. So my mines fine tuned and fixed on the future.