Two camels (a mother and a baby) were lazing around, when suddenly baby said:-
Baby: “mother, mother, can I ask you some question?”
Mother: “sure! Why son, is there something bothering you?”
Baby: “why do camels have humps?”
Mother: “well son, we are desert animals, we need the humps to store water and we are known to survive without water.”
Baby: “okay, then why are our legs long and our feet rounded.”
“Son, obviously they are meant for walking in the desert. You know with these legs I can move around the desert better than anyone”, said the mother proudly.
Baby: “okay, said baby camel. “then why are our eyelashes long? Sometimes it is bothering my sight.” said baby camel.
Mother: “my son, those long thick eyelashes are your protective cover. They help to protect your eyes from the desert sand and wind.” Said mother camel with eyes brimming with pride.
Baby: “I see. So the hump is to store water when we are in the desert, the legs are for walking through the desert and these eyelashes protects my eyes from the desert. Then what the hell are we doing here in a zoo???
Your skills, knowledge, experience and abilities are your assets and they are to be used in practical situations to keep them sharpened. Do not waste your time in a place where you do not get to use our own indigenous assets. If you are meant for something you should be doing just that or else you will lead an unhappy, unsatisfactory life, which will help neither you nor your employers.
Public Relations is one such profession where you need to match your skills, knowledge and abilities to the need of the profession. Everyone can get into the practice easily, but not everyone can be a good PR practitioner. It’s a desert where only experts can survive with specialized skills learned over the period of time dealing with clients and media. Some are naturally good at it or some acquire these skills over the period of time. But to keep these skills sharpened and achieve better results with each passing day, you need passion and opportunities to experiment and grow. If you think you are doing the same things in the same manner without any innovations or you haven’t learnt anything new then it’s time to wake-up from your slumber, kick-out that lethargy and get into something more challenging.
I am not saying you need to change your jobs, but you can certainly ask for more responsibilities and challenging opportunities. If you are result driven professional and have proved yourself in the past then the management will certainly help you. But you need to proactively ask and not expect that someday someone will recognize you’re worth and offer you more responsibilities. That does not happen, if you cannot sell yourself then how do you expect the management to think that you will be able to successfully sell stories?