Here comes the weekend
Finally Friday again, how neat is that! The past weeks I've been taking a good look at myself and what I'd like to do with myself in regards to my participation in the world of horses and equestrian sport.
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Some of the things that came out of this soul searching have made me do some radical changes in my life. Most people won't even notice these changes, but for others they may come as a shock.
One of the things I did was to leave the IAEJ, which would be the International Association for Equestrian Journalists. Quite frankly I did not shy away when doing so. Cause in all honesty it's been a long time now since I was able to relate to this organisation that I once held dear.
This have also been shining through in my posts here on the website. Posts where I ever so often have questioned the purpose of equestrian media. In terms such as what do media do, and maybe even more importantly why aren't they doing anything?
There are three ways one can go about such existential questions. One way is to engage ones self within the organisation and or stop bitching about it. But one can also show ones disappointment by moving on and step out of it.
I choose the latter!
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Will this benefit myself as a freelance journalist? I have no idea, but most probably not. On the other hand I see a lot of hard working people that are not members of the IAEJ that are doing pretty well.
At the same time as I see other individuals, that are members, that for years have gone out of their way to trip fellow colleagues over as soon as they've got a chance to do so.
Since photography is, or maybe more accurate was, my number one trade I can witness of several occasions where "fellow colleagues" interfered with photo locations and such even though themselves were not even part of the photo team of the organisation.
This behaviour has led to people like myself and others just like me, the "not so name worthy" photographers have been blocked out from price giving ceremonies, as well as final days of show jumping in eventing, and so on.
I remember one incident at a high profile dressage and show jumping event where a tiny group of photographers did everything in their power to block other photographers out.
At this event they seriously reported everybody and anybody without a media accreditation but holding a camera bigger than a smart phone to the organisation.
Imagine that! These were people that paid for tickets for a big event, and when going there they brought a camera which the members of the organisation by the entrance allowed them to bring. Just to find themselves being both scrutinised and questioned by members of the press that were indeed attending the event!
What kind of messed up thinking is that?
Zilch, nada, niente!
The second thing I've decided to do is to go all in on client rejections. So unless you're working for a magazine or some kind of sports federation or high end sponsor, I won't do any work for you.
Is that good for business? Maybe not, but since the pandemic it has been a struggle anyway.
Is it good for my own state of mind? Most definitely!
So from now on I don't accept any kind of requests for any voice overs, pod casts, videos, photos or websites. It has become that simple.
Will I continue to do voice overs, pod casts, videos, photos or websites? Yes I will, but only when it benefits me, myself and I.
No volunteer work...
I also decided to quit volunteer work. Which made me tell the president of our local Equestrian development team that I no longer want to be part of their team, cause I don't have the time.
Maybe I do have time but why should I spend [waste] my time on something that really doesn't benefit me and my business one single bit. Cause this is all volunteer work, and as a content creator you can probably already guess what my tasks would involve in this.
Second of all they are not moving forward, at all. Nothing happened for close to two years now, and the only wisdom I ever got from the initially many many meetings is who hates who in our local equestrian society.
If I want to learn about hate I can just as well turn on the news, so why bother?
As if, as ever, forever...
By cutting these things out of my life I can now focus on what I want to do, and I want to continue to share my stories, my wisdom [?], and insights about the world of horses and equestrian sport.
I want to ask those questions others don't seem to ask, I want to dig into those results that doesn't seem to ad up.
Cause in the end of the day I am a horse person, I am an equestrian, and to just silently shut down and stop asking questions and or bringing stories to life would make me into something I'm not.
So please join in in making equestrian sport great again, little by little, step by step. Share your thoughts, share your stories, share your ideas,. Share both the good the bad and ugly. Let's do this!
