Let me tell you about journalism.
It makes you question. Question everything. Which seems obvious, right? Since our job is, you know, being curious and asking questions and challenging the norms. But that’s not what I mean.
Beyond this job description, journalists question themselves. Constantly. We bombard ourselves with prodding questions in the same way we drill our sources but without the veil of professional courtesy.
What’s left is the dark, cold and mostly lonely hole that is self-loathing, magnified by this industry that is so immersive and intimate we forget we are more than the sum of our professional accomplishments and failures.
My time at the Alligator challenged me in this manner more than anything else I’ve done so far. My first steps in the office were apprehensive ones as a freshman coming off a high school career spent having no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I sunk my teeth in as a staff writer, covering crime, constantly afraid I was going to miss breaking news. I became a teacher far before I was ready as metro editor.
And this past semester as editor-in-chief, I stumbled so, so many times. I wondered if it was worth it.
That questioning never fully went away. Each time I thought I made it to the golden threshold — the one where I would finally be at peace with myself — another doubt would arise, and the battle to get out of my own head would begin again.
But let me tell you something. Journalism makes you question everything. Sanity forces you to remember what you learned. The Alligator allows you to apply it — weigh the consequences, recognize the merits, rely only on your instincts because no one else is going to make decisions for you. I realize now I needed it to remind myself I am not just the sum of my professional accomplishments and failures.
No one is.
I encourage those of you who relate to the self-loathing, pressure and dangerous entanglement of self-worth and job to find your Alligator — to find the thing that allows you to pursue your passion while challenging you to be the best version of yourself.
Because at my worst, the paper was ammo to reduce myself to a misplaced comma. But at my best, it showed me what I was capable of when I committed myself to something bigger.
I only hope my next step in life brings out the love in me like the paper did.
And I really hope that, more frequently, I’ll see the same potential in myself that I’ve been lucky enough to encounter leading the Alligator.
Kathryn Varn is a graduating UF journalism senior. She is the editor-in-chief of the Alligator.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 4/22/2015]
