What Inspires Me

The other day my family and I were driving up to Door County, Wisconsin for a little Christmas weekend getaway trip. During the slightly long car ride, I slipped my Nook out of my backpack and picked up where I had left off in All The President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. For those of you born in the 1990s like me, All The President's Men is the story of how two Washington Post reporters basically unfolded the entire Watergate scandal which led to Richard Nixon's resignation.

I love this story. I love everything from the names of the two reporters to how resilient they were to make their stories fair and accurate.

I am only through four chapters of the book so far, but I saw the movie in my Journalism class in high school. Honestly, this movie and story inspires me. 

Determination!

What is inspiring is the lengths Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein went to get their information. They co-wrote most of their articles and as soon as they met their 7:30 pm deadline for next day's paper, they went right back out to the field, driving to different homes of people related to the Watergate scandal, trying to get their story for the next day. I have been reading many of their stories of how they wouldn't use notepads during their interviews because the notepads would make their interviewers uncomfortable and how after their interviews were done for the night, Woodward and Bernstein would meet up at one of their apartments and would just start writing. The amount of time they took out of their lives to get their stories and the way they did it shows how passionate they were about their work. That passion is what inspires me.

I have been learning more and more in my life to go for what you are passionate about. In high school, I thought I wanted to be an engineer. However, I was fortunate enough to have taken Journalism as a second English class my senior year and taking that class helped me realize that writing and journalism is truly what I am passionate about.

Yeah sure, an engineering degree probably would have guaranteed me a great job right out of college and a six-figure salary at some point in my life, but why the heck would I want to have that job when it really isn't something I love?

I wouldn't.

I'd say the goal would to never have to "work" a day in my life. And the only way to do that would be to do something I love.

I just hope I can have nights off like an engineer would.