ABOUT ME

Motivation has three parts: activation, persistence, and intensity. Motivation can also be thought of as a fire — you need to start the fire, you need to continue adding fuel to the fire, and you need to constantly maintain and keep an eye on the flames of the fire. At the start of my freshman year, the fire was weak. Coping with depression and anxiety made for what felt like endless and constant uphill battles, and it made my growth as a writer full of challenges and obstacles. Motivation was a hard flame to even start, and it was harder to find how to have reasonable motivations. However, motivation is what I needed to grow as a student journalist. Yet, at the same time, being a student journalist also activated that motivation. 

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At the end of freshman year, a global pandemic happened, and the world practically shut down. I saw the pandemic as a wave — not just a wave of hospitalizations and conflict — but a metaphorical ocean wave that extinguished motivation. Right before the lockdown, I applied to Dreyfoos' award-winning news publication, The Muse. I spent two years on a news publication at my middle school, why not continue the journalist adventure in high school? Fast forward to March of 2020: the pandemic had hit, and I did not have much drive or motivation to do much. I felt uncertain about whether or not I wanted to be on The Muse, or if I even had a place there. So, when I entered the new school year where students' faces were now on little squares on my computer screen, I had a rough start as a student journalist for The Muse and an even rougher return into the world of journalism. I doubted my abilities, a detriment to my success. 

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Quickly and surely, however, much of my fear was extinguished. My time on The Muse did not become a victim of demotivation, instead, the time I spent reignited motivation. It initiated motivation. Activation is a part of motivation. It came from the friendliness and open environment the staff had created. It came from the supporting and helpful Editors-In-Chief. It came from an editor who'd laugh alongside me whenever a glitch would occur whilst redesigning the website. It came from a staff that always had each others' backs. It came from The Muse. 

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But it wasn't just the people of The Muse, it was even the work itself that my motivation and growth had come from. I uploaded stories, but I also read the stories I uploaded. I marveled at the writings of my peers and thought, "we have to let people see this." Only with a good online space for The Muse could these stories thrive, so I made it my biggest goal to find ways to improve on the website and propose ideas that could be implemented to improve readability and retention. This desire was the fuel I so lacked, a fuel that reignited motivation. And, yes, it came from The Muse. 

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Thus, despite it all, I continued.

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I continued to work. I continued to learn. I continued to grow. The website section started off as intimidating and unwieldy, but I persisted. Persistence is a part of motivation. 20+ tabs filled the top right part of my screen with different tutorials, articles, and pages that would help me more as a website staffer. Even to this day, similar tabs continue to clog up that space and accompany pages of spreadsheets and notes as I continued to further carry The Muse website to even greater horizons.

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All the difficulties that I and the rest of The Muse had faced during the 2020-2021 school year taught me just how necessary strong communication was for a publication, how important it was to make major commitments, and how crucial it was to guide and support your fellow journalists. It was all intense. Intensity is a part of motivation. 

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Then, junior year came. I became a website editor, but I was still a victim of the pandemic's effects on mental health and the personal issues I grappled with long before that. A long to-do list sat on my phone and greeted me every time I looked for Spotify and Discord. I knew my weaknesses and learned to adapt, changing my routine so that I could remember tasks and stay on track. It can be grueling to do so much and stare at those daunting lists, but despite it all, I continued. 

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I wrote up a lot of lists, and I wrote up, perhaps, too many spreadsheets. My Google Drive had seen more Slides presentations and Google Sheets than it has seen me make my entire school career. My SMS was no longer empty; I texted on it almost as much as I chatted on games as a younger child. I wrote emails and messages to all sorts of people around the school, the general format of an email being engraved into my mind. I spoke with others and picked up my feet more than I would ever expect as an introvert. All of these helped me grow as a student journalist as I learned how to gather together the stories that needed to be told. Whether it was emailing my Beats or countless interviewees, and even other journalists whose stories I needed to upload, all of it taught me how to communicate and how to organize. 

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Countless lessons were learned. They were learned from little errors to stressful series of events. No matter how I learned them, they all helped me grow as a leader and as a journalist. As stressful or as irritating as they were, I realized I needed those ups and downs for those valuable lessons. Sometimes we need to get knocked down to learn how to get back up and persist. And from these lessons, I learned how to communicate and be vulnerable to my staffers. They were in a world I was in when I first joined The Muse, and with that in mind, my motivation shifted to them in pursuit of a continuously prosperous website. I learned I couldn't do it all, even if I wanted. I had staff for a reason, and I needed to give my trust to them while I guided them and reminded them that they can grow and succeed. I realized it was also my role to motivate others. I was able to start my flame, but it was important I could help others start theirs too.

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Stress exists. Difficulty in leading and in growing absolutely exists. It always will, but despite it, I have continued. I have continued to devote myself to my passions as a journalist. I have continued to stay motivated in my goals to be a voice for others , to be the messenger sharing stories with everyone, and to be a leader to guide and motivate others. Journalism is what I want to do. It is the fuel of my motivation. Journalism is important to me because it helps me accomplish my wishes to communicate.

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Despite all that may come, I want to continue. I will continue.

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