Your career biologial clock

When you hear the term "biological clock" you usually think of women and child-bearing, but make no mistake, your career in television has its own biological clock. The damn thing ticks loud in the early part of your career, sounds like Big Ben as you reach landmark birthdays.

Time is the fire in which we burn, and in television news, we live in a blast furnace.

Thing is, the clock can make your life miserable, and cause you to miss some really good moments in your life.

When we get out of college, we set goals, and we always seem to attach them to birthdays. "By 25 I want to be in this market. By thirty I want to be at the network."

Sound familiar?

Well, the TV biological clock also comes with a snooze button. So when you hit 25 and you're still stuck in Podunk, you can hit the button and slide your goals back another year.

And another. And another.

Then you see some beauty queen start out at a major market and the clock sounds like a Chinese gong in your head.

Hit the snooze button often enough and one day you'll wake up, find a birthday cake with forty candles, and throw the clock against the wall. And if the clock has ruled your life, you'll wonder where the time went and what you've been doing since the thing started ticking.

What you've more than likely been doing is missing the best parts of your life.

Sure, the business is in a sorry state now, but would you rather have a real job, working nine to five, clock watching as the day drags on? While few other careers can be as frustrating, few offer the special moments that television news does. The great stories, those moments in the newsroom when everyone is part of a family, the relationships you have with photogs (for those of you lucky enough to work with them.)

So pull the plug on the TV biological clock. Yank the thing out of the wall and smash it to bits.

Success has its own timetable. For some people it's right out of the gate, for others it takes time.

If you like what you're doing, you've already attained a degree of success, because most people in this world hate their jobs. Remember, it's not what someone else has attained. What they do has nothing to do with you.

If you're happy, you don't need the clock.