Sunday, April 13, 2008

Do I want to live this way?


I’ve purposefully stayed in the office tonight to post this latest blog entry.

The past few days have been just mentally and physically draining for me with balancing my job as an SID and my duties a student. Today is just another example of this pain. I work the baseball game all the way out at Shelby Park, book it back to the office to write and post the story and send information to the conference office. After I do that, I prepare my weekly report for baseball to send to the media and nominate players of the week.

After that, I head down to the Beaman to have a group meeting for three projects that are due in two weeks in sports journalism. While there, I see my classmate Scott to discuss my group project with him for another class, facilities. I still have so much work to do for that class, including a meeting tomorrow afternoon at Opryland. Furthermore, I see some friends from last semester who I haven’t seen in a long time and miss those times when we would hang out.

I head back up to the office and prepare information for Austin Peay, our next baseball opponent. Once that’s done, I get information for the track and field meets that Belmont was in and had to prepare two releases for that and post them on the website.

Now, its 10:30 p.m. and I still have more work to do, I missed the last wash at my laundry so that’s a problem. The question I have for myself now is do I really want to live this life?

I had someone at Beaman tell me that when she gets stressed out, she drinks some hot chocolate and listens to Mozart. Since I’m not seven anymore and prefer some hard rock, I won’t be doing that, I’ll be writing a blog entry about where I’m at.

Whom I kidding? I love hot chocolate! Give me some cookies and a warm blanket and I’m in! Hate if you want.

I’ll have some lighter blog entries coming up in the future including my NBA Playoffs preview along with my choices for award winners, more baseball stuff (how about those Reds and Royals!), my favorite all-time music albums and other observations of life, but I have to write what I feel and my head is just in a different place right now.

An entry or two ago I spoke about asking myself is it worth it. I came to the conclusion that it is worth it, because all of the experiences we have in our lives represent something that we need to look at and analyze.

The past few weeks have made me think about what I really want with my life professionally and personally. I like my job situation and will enjoy my next year here. However, that will end this time next year and I need to see if I want to be an SID for the rest of my career. I enjoy working with the coaches and athletes and the staff, but honestly, I’m in an office on a Sunday night and will not have a day off for the next month and a half.

I don’t want a family now or anything like that but I don’t want to be riding on a bus trying to write a press release when I’m 40. I like being an SID and its allowed me to have a career in sports, my dream since I was a kid, and is paying for school right now, but I don’t think this will be my career in the future.
I have other interests in sports, including senior administration in college athletics, but it’s just hard seeing that future sometimes.

I’ve always had a warped sense of my skills. I’ve always downplayed the talents and skills that I have. When I was at Vanderbilt, I often felt that I didn’t deserve to be there and even when people bring up what a good school it is and tell me I must be smart to have graduated from there, I’m almost embarrassed to have gone there. Almost every job I have ever had, I’ve over performed to compensate my belief that I wasn’t worthy of being there and that I would be fired if I didn’t overachieve. This applies to my personal life as well. Let’s just say that I have self-confidence issues and leave it at that. But in the end, coming to Belmont has made me see my worth as an employee and as a person because I’m continually challenged by my work and the people around my life here. These challenges have made me stronger and patient with the developments of my life.

I mentioned in the past that I thought I would be married by now, but I also thought that I would be some big-time lawyer with an awesome office with a window also. That’s the main reason that I was so focused on academics as a youngster and earned scholarships for my private high school and eventually college. But I wasn’t happy in that life.

I love sports and working in it. It’s my hobby and my career. But with this job comes giving of your time that I and others may not be willing to give up.

Our amazing senior administrator at Belmont, Coach Wiseman, told my class last semester that the key to being a good administrator in college athletics and in sports in general is to serve the student-athletes. That was the most important thing I’ve learned here. However, do I or any of us want to do that for our career?

Do any of us want to work that extra hour to make sure that we do our job well at the expense of spending time with friends or in blissful solitude? Do any of you athletes want to have that extra practice at the expense of enjoying your favorite personal pastimes?

Sitting in an office alone on a Sunday night will make you reflective and contemplative. But that’s what truly makes you know what you want with your life and for that, I’m thankful.

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