speculating on the future

What’s next?

It’s almost impossible to know what will happen after my time as a Fulbright grantee ends.

I’m blessed with an embarrassment of options; it would be easy to get a paid-for grad degree, a full-time job in sports information, or an entry-level role with a PR firm when my time is up here. Aside from that, sports journalism or a radio commentary job are also easily within my reach.

Most all of those things are jobs I think I’d be happy doing, and a few make decent money as well.

But there’s still something in me that feels like going back to the States and settling into the professional world would be closing the curtain on something I’m not yet ready to say goodbye to.

Going back abroad in a similar capacity or a completely different one is a really exciting prospect, and on another level, staying in Bolivia long-term sounds more appealing the longer I spend here.

At the same time, I want to be around for my family and my friends back home. They miss me a lot, and I know it affects a lot of people I love when I’m so far away.

Beyond that, they’ve sacrificed a lot to get me where I am and deserve to have me around. Of course, I miss them, too.

Then again, I have a family here in Bolivia as well now. And leaving them for good would break my heart just as much.

As I consider all these conflicting desires and interests, one interesting thing I’m recognizing is that despite what my self-esteem would have convinced me of before, I’m valuable to a lot of people for a lot of different reasons.

The more places I go, the more I recognize the impact I’m able to have when I have good people around me and confidence in what I’m applying myself to.

That should feel good, but it kinda doesn’t.

I don’t know, it’s just painful to think about the fact that no matter where I go or what I do, somebody is missing what I would be able to provide them with otherwise.

In a sense, I can recognize the over-responsibility I’m placing on myself, but the feeling is still present in my mind.

There’s a rapper I’m a big fan of named Andy Mineo. I’ve been a fan of his for years because of how intensely his lyrics have resonated with me, often years after I hear them for the first time.

One such song is “another me” from an album called Work in Progress. The whole record is fantastic and has a lot to do with the growth themes I’m tackling while I’m here (highly recommend listening the whole way through!).

“another me”, though, has a particular lyric that’s been marinating in my brain recently: “I guess that pain’s in store//For anyone who want it all.”

I think there’s an important distinction between recognizing that something is a deep thought and actually thinking about it deeply. And I’ve only recently started to think about that line deeply.

I’ve gotta be honest, I don’t love how much it’s calling me out!

That reality that we can’t have everything we want and that the pursuit of all of it only leads to disappointment is one I need to hear. Continually.

Right now, it’s making me wonder how I can transition from wanting it all to wanting just enough.

Because right now, I absolutely want it all. I want to be there for my loved ones back home and my people in Bolivia.

I want to be at the top of my professional field and outwork, outperform, and outshine everyone else, but I also want to leave it all behind forever and exchange that stress for the wild, wonderful life I’m living right now.

I want to fall in love and share a connection with someone, and I want to travel the world and live my life freely without anyone else to think about.

I want to make consistent money and I want to chase a freelance pipe dream.

I want it all.

And I don’t know what I should stop wanting.

I don’t have any more closure than that, either. It remains to be seen how I’ll resolve that conflict I’m feeling, but I’ve got the time and the desire to get it right.

In the meantime, I’m really excited by another thing I got right this past weekend.

pr workshops

For the first time, I got to give two Inter-Institutional Relations courses in two different cities with the primary organization I’m working with this year.

Apoyo Bolivia sent me along with the director to La Paz and Oruro to present my two-hour workshop as part of a full day of instruction in each place.

Live music in the streets of Oruro on a Friday evening

Highlights of Bolivia’s (mostly) capital city

It’s been over three months that we’ve been working on realizing this plan, and it’s been so rewarding and exciting to finally share it with people, provide some deliverables for my midway update to Fulbright in a month or so, and most importantly, get feedback from lots of Bolivians about how they understand and respond to public relations in a practical sense.

To be honest, it’s turning out to be much more difficult to accomplish my initial goals than I imagined.

Many of the people I’m teaching in these courses really need much more basic technology skills, and offering them public relations strategy doesn’t solve many of their day-to-day problems and unlock potential growth if they don’t have that technology base to work from.

With that realization behind me, my new tasks include 1) boiling down what I’m teaching to the bare minimum, 2) finding a way to get people caught up on tech basics so they can receive more of my expertise, and 3) changing my expectations for what I’ll accomplish and exactly how far I’ll get in my research on how public relations affects personal life here.

More courses should be coming in the next month or so, and we’re already considering and planning what a second level of Inter-Institutional Relations might look like.

The best news is that so many people have shown interest and excitement about the topic and really want to learn, difficult though it may be to make that learning happen. I’ve come away encouraged by the response and proud of the work I’ve done to get this far.

back to the future (lol I think I’m funny)

All that brings me back to what could happen next, when all of this is done and this dream-like life I’m living switches gears again.

Assuming it does, of course.

Something else I’m thinking about is what this time in my life is enhancing in me professionally.

My personal development has been overwhelmingly evident, my Spanish has consistently improved over the weeks and months, and my happiness and mental health are at all-time highs.

Again, though, I’m wired to want it all, and I think an important aspect of Fulbright is its involvement of professional growth and experience.

And that was one of the strangest parts of leaving, that I was very much on a sports media and broadcasting track when I graduated back in December.

I left almost all of that and dropped the momentum I’d built to pick public relations back up and really intensively dig into how I could use it uniquely and effectively.

So now I’m anticipating being in an interesting place professionally when I return.

From a purely PR perspective, I’ll have a year of practicing internationally for non-profits under my belt, to go along with an internship with a well-respected firm. Adding in some sports-related PR, I’ve got 2 years of experience there. That’s more than enough to have an entry-level job at a firm almost anywhere in the country.

In the commentary world, I’ve got years of radio and freelance TV broadcasts that add up to over 100 calls total. I could probably flip that experience into a radio gig somewhere, especially in a small market.

And I’ve also got sports information experience to call upon, plenty to get me a high-level graduate assistant gig that would open up just about any school in the country as a job option afterwards.

Then again, I could try my hand at full-time journalism and be a writer for a smaller publication; my writing is strong enough and my student journalism won some pretty prestigious awards.

But I wonder sometimes: all of this experience I have, my desires to be around family but also keep living in this amazing country, all these conflicting career paths—is there some life I could make for myself where they all feed into what I’m doing?

It could be that I have to choose to leave some behind and prioritize others. That’s the most likely outcome and what just about everybody does, I think, when they have to make adult choices about what their professional lives will hold.

But it doesn’t stop the kid in me from wondering if I could get creative and let all of it come together somehow.

It’s all speculation, and there are many more months for me to enjoy here before it’s a pertinent worry. But at the same time, a little speculation can be fun as long as it doesn’t turn to overthinking.

That’s what I’ll be working on over the next few weeks from a personal perspective, I think. I want to get excited about future opportunities and prudently consider my options ahead of time while still living in every present moment while it’s still the present. Because that’s not a long window.

I’ll work on that and come back soon with an update! Until then, thanks very much as always for taking time to keep up with what I’m doing.

See you in a couple of weeks!

Blessings,

Danny