Have You Evolved Lately?

One of the highlights of my college career, was having the back page all-but reserved for my weekly column in our college newspaper.

As someone who grew up loving to write and dreamed of having my thoughts in print, seeing that tangible product was a high that's hard to describe.

Oh, and people might read it? How cool!

A conversation with a good friend of mine who works at my Alma Mater, broke my heart, when I learned of the news that the student newspaper is no longer found in print and consumed by student's every Thursday on press day... as was the case during my tenure as a columnist with The Tan and Cardinal.

While I jokingly went back and forth with him about how awful the thought was, that a kid like me, who loved journalism and the written-word as I did, would never again have that joy of seeing his mug and words on the back page as the "Featured Columnist."

It's the world we live in... adapt or die as the saying goes.

Along those same lines, I had an epiphany earlier in the year, that no 10 year-old would ever again have his first job be a paper route, as mine was.

I delivered 72 papers a days, 6 days a week for 2 years. I still remember the disgust I felt, waking up at 6 AM to get the Saturday paper out to the loyal readers of The Mount Vernon News. Every. Single. Saturday.

My paper route is my personal "get-off-my-lawn" and "kids today" moment that I've had to overcome. "Kids today won't know what that 6 AM struggle was like! They're all soft!"

Yeah well, get over it Lucas, they'll struggle some other way, just as you did, just not with a paper route.

It's wild to come to the foregone conclusion that print media is dead. While I learned to read with newspapers and have such fond memories of print... it's gone. As college kids come into the work force, there will no longer be a need for print... there's no reason to hold on it.

They didn't read a newspaper in college... they certainly aren't going to read one once out in the "real world."

I hate it as much as you do. But, we of course must evolve.

I had some left over frequent flyer miles earlier this year, and received a post card that said I could use said miles to subscribe to a few of the listed periodicals. I thought how great it was going to be, to have my favorite magazines delivered monthly/weekly to my home.

I would come home from work and lose myself in the human-interest stories of the week.

I was wrong. Instead, they sat on my coffee table and collected dust. Or even worse, they sat in my mailbox for days at a time... never even making it to my coffee table.

I also couldn't wait to take my magazines on my next flight!

Nope. Instead, they sat in the seat pouch in front of me, as I browsed the internet and completed some work.

I no longer read magazines. I no longer read newspapers. That realization is rough for someone who grew up dreaming of being a journalist and having his words read by hundreds of thousands of people in the paper.

My epiphany of print media is an important one for us all. Letting go of the things we love as the situation demands, is reality.

The situation is the boss.

While I'll miss all things print media... it's important to grasp that very soon... it will be a thing of the past.

RIP Print... we will miss you.