I had felt it three months into my gig for the online news company.  Now, almost two months later, the elephant was really on my chest. At nights- when I revised the day I’d had, it would sit there eating peanuts, tossing accusations, and making my chest tight and feeling very ready to collapse.

I would replay interviews in my head then cringe when I realized that I’d let critical questions go unasked in the interest of getting the particular angle the company desired for the next morning's issue. (More and more, I was having to fight going into interviews with the story already written.) Sometimes, when I re-read an article that had been specifically requested of me, I would think about how it could go unpublished and the public be none the worse off or lesser informed for it.

I was regressing. I was neglecting everything I’d learnt since my last trip back to school and over the last two years as a journalist.  The passion was fizzling; it was evident in the work I was producing, particularly, the hard news pieces.  The online news company’s daily deadlines combined with a powerful dose of close-minded/uncreative leadership was pushing me to become the sort of creature I was six years ago when I first entered the field fresh out of my teens.  Now, I was finding myself less prone to attempting extensive probing. Now, I was reading my published articles and seeing gaping holes in them. Now, I was cringing all too often at some of the pieces I attempted.

I’d always intended to go back to school.  When I rejoined the R. Allen Stanford paper in 2007, I’d thought of spending only one year away from school. But, that one year turned into two; I was truly enjoying what I was doing and the work environment back then was as healthy or healthier than I would have found anywhere else on the island.  In 2009, when I was called before the human resource manager at the R. Allen Stanford paper and asked about my plans for school, I had been honest.  My plan then was to remain in the world of work for another two or even three years.

But that was back then. And this was now.  Now, I felt as if the number of intelligent thoughts and actions I could muster, were in danger of getting even smaller.  I wasn’t the sort of person who would let the malicious manoeuvrings of others make me take my heels in hand and run. I could never totally blame others for my desire to quit the field.

Indeed, my unwillingness to put up any fierce fight had already alerted me to the fact that I no longer wanted any of this. I am a fighter…have always been; I know very well how to fight covertly and overtly. But I wasn’t fighting. I was spending my days in an amused sort of rapture. My sighs of frustration: “I can’t believe he/she is trying this with me” were as superficial as my indignation when attempts were made to have me pursue stories as a personal favour to others.

My saving glory in all of this was that there was something that wasn’t superficial- my inkling for my life to account for more. I had finally settled down on exactly what “doing more” would entail; I was shocked at my decision since it didn’t promise a quiet life.  But there it was as clear as day- my bizarre route to making life a bit better for others; a three-year research period in a programme only a fool would think could possibly lead to what I had in mind for the future.