My mission is to leverage the power of technology and communication deliberately and confidently in order to tell impactful stories, speak truth to power and enrich the lives of myself and others.
-Isaac Windes
For the longest time, I have lived my life on a whim. A spontaneous succession of events where one opportunity gives way to the next with nothing much more than passion driving my actions or path.
This has led me to a wide variety of life-changing, eye-opening and absolutely magnificent opportunities. Unfortunately, it has also left me with a lot of questions and little direction as to where I am headed.
I think in developing my mission statement, this was one of the key things that I want to begin developing and focusing on. That is, deciding what I want to do and doing it deliberately, and with purpose. I think I can maintain the spontaneity and passion that has driven me to travel the country and the world while honing it to make it more of a worthwhile and meaningful experience. Deliberately.
The other facet of developing a mission statement that is both personal and professional is confidence. When I started college, and when I started writing as a journalist I had no experience. I started at the State Press before I even started the Journalism program. This led me, in a lot of ways to foster a culture of deferment and submission.
I often would simply accept any revisions made by my editors, and as I became a more proficient writer and moved into more professional environments, an element of this doubt came with me. I have realized however as of late that there are times for such attitudes, but that I have developed myself as a writer and as a professional enough that I can confidently defend the quality of my content and work against unnecessary and arbitrary critique.
That is why I want to act confidently both in the small decisions of things like writing structure and word choice, and some of the larger decisions such as story content and sourcing. I think this can transfer into my personal life too, where I have often allowed my decisions to be haphazardly curtailed by people who assume they have a better idea of what my skill set would be fit for.
The latter half of my mission statement comes from my deep passion and commitment to my job and the life-changing gravitas that it carries with it. The title of communicator or journalist or writer comes with massive responsibility, honor and the ability to effect real change.
I felt it was important to include technology given the inevitable marriage of every aspect of our lives both professional and personal with the ever-increasing and ever-encroaching reach of technology.
Overall I aim to hone the focus of my sporadic lifestyle to leverage my passion to move my life in one direction while using the skills I have acquired to make real change in the world.
