We’re living through scary days in the media world. I’m not here to sugarcoat the reality that there are fewer opportunities for mid-career journalists with decades of experience, or that if you go full-time anywhere, it could be very short-lived, as outlets continue to close, cut freelance budgets, or just plain disappear. 

Hell, just look at the updated jobs data that came out yesterday–a revision that shows that 911,000 fewer jobs were added than previously reported, over the last year. That’s before we even talk about the impact of tariffs, the threats that Trump is making to the independence of the Fed, and the firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics….and all the other horrific things going on in the world both politically and culturally, that could send our economy and our business into an even greater tailspin. 

As a group of people who pay attention to this stuff (because we’re journalists, reporters, writers, and all-around responsible adults), these things feel heavy. Add in any personal stuff you’re dealing with, and it's no wonder most of us would prefer to hole up than engage in the world. (ahem) 

If you follow me on social media and noticed that I’m a ghost these days, or if you’ve texted in the last few weeks and I haven’t responded, know that it's not you. There’s a lot going on right now.  But this past week, while I was feeling pretty low, I stumbled across a couple of things that have stuck with me and seem to be pulling me out of the morass a little, so I thought I’d share them with you in today’s newsletter.  These ideas are helping me reframe some of the really difficult things going on in my life and in the world. 

Challenges are Out. Experiments are In.

The first seems like a relatively obvious shift. 

Everyone talks about life’s hardships as “challenges.” This smacks so much of corporate jargon that it sets my teeth on edge. To me, using the word, “challenge” to describe everything from a layoff to a death in your family only adds to the stress and anxiety around talking about difficult life events by forcing you to “reframe” something terrible in a “positive way,” because god knows people don’t like to hear bad news. There’s also this weird implicit undercurrent of wins and losses implicit in that word–and if you’re a highly competitive person like me, that doesn’t help. 

Somewhere in my internet wanderings, last week, I stumbled upon an idea of reframing this ridiculous corporate language into something that feels less pressurized. Less black and white. Something that carried a bit more freedom with it.

 Rather than referring to things that happen to you as a challenge, what if we reframed it as an experiment? Experiments have outcomes that inform our next steps. They don’t have winners and losers. They sometimes don’t even have black and white outcomes.

And yes, I acknowledge that the term “experiments” does not apply to all the things that happen in our lives, but it has sort of stuck with me. After all, aren’t we all just experimenting with our responses to things that happen in our lives, and figuring out our way through? 

Experiments yield data that can be learned from; there are no points or wins and losses.  It reframes anything that feels like a failure as an opportunity for curiosity and learning instead. Experimenting, to me, feels a bit lighter and a bit more fun–something we all need in our lives right about now. 

Anxiety as an Adventure

The idea of experimentation, combined with this story by Arthur C. Brooks’ on Turning Anxiety into Adventure in The Atlantic, hit me kind of hard.

In the piece, he draws on Kierkegaard’s idea that anxiety isn’t some scourge to be eliminated but an adventure to be embraced. Anxiety, he wrote, is the “dizziness of freedom”—uncomfortable, but also a sign that we’re alive and stretching ourselves. It’s the sign of expansion, and testing our limits (as long as we are not chronically anxious, of course–that's a whole other thing.)

Apparently, the experience of anxiety helps unlock the psychology of flow. If you know me, you know I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the idea of flow since I was first exposed to it in college, thanks to the psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and his book, Flow. I’ve been doing a lot of work around this topic in the background (for the last year or so), and so I’ve been re-reading a lot of his work in that effort.

According to Brooks, “In 2014, scholars writing in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology published a study on how a person’s anxiety while performing a task affected 'flow,’...The researchers found that flow states in people performing a complex computer task were highest when subjects … felt some anxiety but were not overwhelmed by it.” 

So in many ways, anxiety (as much as we all hate it) can be good. When combined, these two ideas have started to slightly shift how I’m thinking about the heaviness of this moment in life and work. 

If life’s difficulties are experiments rather than challenges, then the data we collect—even from the messy parts—becomes valuable. And if anxiety is, in fact, the “dizziness of freedom,” then it isn’t just something to suppress or try to ignore, but an invitation to pay attention, because it means we’re at the edge of something new.

While it doesn’t make the headlines less grim, it does make the day-to-day feel a little more workable for me. 

Instead of bracing for the next test I might fail, I can step into experiments where I might learn something valuable. Instead of running from the knot of anxiety in my stomach, I can treat it as a marker that I’m stretching beyond what’s comfortable—maybe even on the cusp of adventure.

That's your deep thought of the week…I hope it brings some comfort to you in these tumultuous times. 

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And Now..the Jobs

Even if things feel somewhat dire sometimes, there are plenty of opportunities for skilled media folks like you out there. It may not necessarily be in the media business, but it turns out the world needs journalists for other roles too.

This week’s highlights include:

• A well-known modern domicile magazine is looking for great pitches and paying up to $2 per word. (And yes, I include the editor’s email address).

• A contract business editor role for a very well-known business and technology outlet.

•  A freelance video editor gig that pays up to $72 an hour.

• A video and podcast deputy editor and producer role for a very well-respected magazine that pays up to $170k.

• A full-time editorial role at a tech outlet (fully remote) that pays up to $200k a year.

• And a lot more.

If you’re a paid subscriber, feel free to jump right in and check out the latest jobs. If you’re not…well, you know what to do.

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