Take-aways from my time at the CMA Spring Conference
By Jason Greenough | Arts & Entertainment Editor
From March 13-15, I attended the College Media Association’s Spring Convention in New York City. Along with Observer Editor John Mossey, we represented the Mount Observer in what many of people consider “the greatest city in the world,” and it was honestly a lot of fun to be a part of. I knew from the first day, when one of the speakers gave me a free pizza, that it was going to be a fulfilling experience.
I learned a lot while I was there, from the lessons taught at various workshops offered by the conference, from the culture of the city itself, and from Google Maps (Note to self: the “Strawberry Fields” you punched in at W. 85th St., thinking it was the John Lennon “Strawberry Fields Forever” memorial are only that. No Lennon. Just Strawberries.)
But what I took to heart more than anything during those three days in the Big Apple is the advice offered to me by ABC’s Nightline co-anchor, Byron Pitts, the conference’s Keynote speaker.
“What is it with this word ‘try’, Jason?” he asked me, after telling him that I wanted to try and pursue a career is activist Journalism. “Why do you keep using the word ‘try’? Using the word ‘try’ only sets up barriers for yourself, and it only limits you,” he told me. I didn’t understand the magnitude of those words, and quite honestly, I’m still sort of trying to process the fact that this man, who has been all over the world with a national News station, and beat incredible odds growing up in Baltimore to be where he is today, took the time to tell me that I am setting limits for myself by only “trying”.
He was tired, leaning against a chair in the Hotel ballroom once the stress on his feet from spending more than three hours standing and talking to hundreds of other fellow aspiring journalists started to affect him a little bit. But that didn’t stop him from giving me advice that has since changed the way I view my life. He took the time out of his busy schedule (He legitimately rescheduled a dentist appointment in front of me in order to make more time to talk to students) to let me know that I can do anything I set my mind to. I know, it’s not the first time I heard someone say that to me. But it’s the first time I’ve really listened to it. It was humbling for sure, for a 20-year old College student who is self-aware enough to see how he actually thinks he knows what he’s up against in life.
Have you ever been in a situation where the words “I’ll show you someday” just don’t feel true? Like, someone at some point told you that you wouldn’t amount to anything, or that you weren’t any good at acting, or that you just don’t have what it takes to make the starting lineup of the JV Baseball team? Well, Pitts said something earlier that day during his keynote address, before our heart-to-heart, that might find you well, like it did me, as you read this. I really hope it does, actually.
Pitts said, “When the skeptics have pissed me off, all I say to myself is ‘soon’”.
“Soon”. That hit me like a ton of bricks. I’ll make it past my obstacles one day, and I know you will too. Soon, you will show everyone and everything out there that you aren’t fooling around. That you’re going to be a Teacher, that you’re going to travel the world, that you’re going to change someone’s life with a song. And while this might sound like a joke, I am dead serious when I quote wise Jedi Master, Yoda: “Do, or do not. There is no try.”
Be well, reader, and carry on today with the burning passion of a young kid from Baltimore, Maryland who never succumbed to the harsh criticism that strived to keep him from capturing his dream. “Soon.”
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