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Running from Safety

One of the toughest dilemmas anyone faces in making choices about career or life paths is which to weigh more heavily: safety, or fulfillment? A lucky few manage to have both qualities at once, but most jobs that offer good paychecks and “safe” job security turn out not to be the most fulfilling ways we could imagine spending our days. There’s a reason, it turns out, that they pay so well. People won’t do those jobs for the love of them.

More creative or passionate endeavors; the pursuits that feed our hearts and souls, or rate really high on the “fun” meter, offer payment beyond money. So, not surprisingly, the money tends to be less, and in some cases, the safety factor is a lot lower, too. Just ask any actor, artist, adventurer, or self-employed freelancer.

Hence the dilemma. There is usually a cost to fulfillment. And figuring out whether that cost, or trade-off, is worth it gets a lot harder when there are children or a family in the mix. Is it fair to risk your children’s college education just because you wanted to be happy?

“Yes,” is the answer at least one journalist came to recently.

As an industry, journalism is in the middle of a wrenching (and in some ways self-inflicted) implosion that would be really intriguing to watch if you weren’t actually in the middle of it. Newspapers are closing, magazines are making drastic cuts, writers are being asked to write for free, information sources are exploding like cancer cells, and nobody’s quite sure how it’s all going to settle out, in the end. The only thing that’s sure is, a lot of professional writers are going to lose their way of making a living in the process.

So in February, 2008, a journalist named Thomas Moran, who was the political columnist for The Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey, quit his job to go work for the power company as a policy manager. He loved journalism. But it just had begun to seem too risky a path, with a family to support. As The New York Times reported in its business section last Sunday, the switch seemed like a brilliant stroke, because The Star-Ledger laid off 40% of its staff soon afterward. By getting out ahead of the knife, Moran had a really stable, good-paying job—important to him, because he had two kids who would soon be going to college.

There was only one problem with the plan. Moran was miserable. As David Carr of the Times put it, “representing the interests of a large corporation clanked against his nature.” Friends noticed a change in Moran’s mood. The bounce in his step was gone. Finally, Moran decided the cost of safety was just too high. He’d left journalism to take care of his children. But what about the example he was setting for them?

“You should do what you love,” Moran concluded, adding “I don’t think [my kids] enjoyed living with me moping around because I was miserable.”

So Moran is back on the rickety, risky ship known as journalism again, working once again as a political columnist for The Star-Ledger.

“There is no job security, and it could all blow up in a year,” he told Carr, smiling. “But I now have a front-seat on the spectacle of New Jersey politics.” Which, granted, is a uniquely entertaining circus. But Moran also gained another reward that can’t be measured in paychecks or security. “I no longer have to collaborate with 15 people on a plan to go to the bathroom,” he said. “Big companies are by nature hierarchal and cautious. If I want to go into my editor’s office and tell him I think he’s a bozo, I can.”

The dilemma is a tough one. But there are costs and benefits to the choices we make that aren’t quantifiable on a spreadsheet. Running back into a burning building might seem crazy to a lot of people. But sometimes, running from safety is the only way to stay alive.

{ 1 comment… add one }
  • João Victor September 20, 2009, 1:49 pm

    Hi,
    This is a great article! The best words and philosfy was choosen. I agree in hundred percent, I think like that way.
    Congratulations! Very good work!
    regards,
    JVCBRAGA
    Photographer and Skydiver

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