Yesterday, Henry the Maltese had what is the textbook definition of a lazy Sunday. He slept and stretched and huddled into a ball, occasionally looking up if he felt the wind had blown the wrong way. He was warm, well-fed and loved, without a care in the world. While I sat by him, I began to realize how jealous I was of the fact that he didn’t have anything to worry about at all, while I spend most of my day worrying – worrying about succeeding as a journalist, about securing a writing job I love, about making a difference in this crazy world, about starting my life, about pursuing my education, about every single minute thing.

The truth is, I’m not very happy with my life at the moment. I think I’m going to adopt a policy of being brutally honest on the web space of mine, because I find that I tend to censor myself and because of that, my thoughts tend to become cannibalized.

I’m unsatisfied with both sectors of my life: professional and personal.

When I graduated in 2007, armed with a bachelor’s in journalism, I wanted to really, honest to God make a different with my writing. And I still do, that part hasn’t changed, but I feel there are so many obstacles that have prevented me from doing so, one being the current economic blunder we’re in, another being that the journalism times, they are a changin’, well they have been for quite some time, and that’s fine. I like change, especially shifts in technology, but because of this change, for better or for worse, few jobs remain for people like me. Where are all the young journalists and why wont anyone give them a job?

In addition to the current full-time position I have as a content editor, I have been writing freelance ever since I left school, and even before then, and guess what? For most of the time, I’ve been doing it for free, just to get my foot in the door.

I know I have the skills. I definitely have the passion and enthusiasm and driving force that’s needed in this business, so why wont all those struggling newspapers and magazines, hire people like me, who know how to adapt to change and make it work, instead of not giving anyone with less than 10 years of experience the time of day? It’s really disturbing.

Then, there are many moments throughout my day that I feel guilty for being unhappy. The guilt doesn’t hit my immediately. It actually builds up and hits my slowly, like a tidal wave, but when it does hit, it’s awful. I should be thankful that I have a job, at least. I should be thankful I’m not in a position that’s completely unrelated to my passions and goals in life. I should be happy I’m a content editor who manages well over 400 writers and produces content for the web.

That’s the thing though, I’m not happy. I want to do more. I want to write more. I want to write about things that matter and perhaps things that don’t, and I want to be happy when I come home, not miserable. Maybe I’m having a bad day. Maybe this will blow over, or maybe not. I do know one thing, my passion and ideas and creativity cannot be contained by a 9 to 5 job in a cubicle, it just wont happen. Journalism, don’t fail me now.