There are times in my life when random events or phrases are burned into my long-term memory like a cattle brand.
Last Friday, my brain was yet again imprinted with a motto, for lack of a better term, by which to live.
During Communications Day at the University of La Verne, a day-long event in which I participated, Norman Pattiz, chairman of Westwood One Broadcasting, spoke about-what a surprise-communications, with an emphasis on radio.
But it was not his story of how he broke into the radio business that stuck in my head, although I can tell an interested soul that Mr. Pattiz was involved in television at KCOP before he began his radio career.
He told us to get our pens and paper out and take notes on what he was about to utter.
Even though Pattiz is worth millions, the hot, burning cattle prod of English he used to burn my brain was free of charge. He told me, along with other high school and college communication students in attendance, his money maker.
“You … gotta … love … it,” Pattiz said.
And after the two seconds or so it took him to pronounce those words, Pattiz had left an impression and a motto with me that, I know, will last for life.
How do I know this? Let me explain.
As any high school senior with visions of colleges and universities upon the horizon, I was trying to decide which place of higher education to attend.
Watching friends go to Ivy League institutions and University of California schools, I had some choices to make.
So, on a weekend in April 1996, I took a trip to the University of Southern California.
The two-day affair was, well, planned. The Trojans took me everywhere that first day. I was shown around campus, taken to a USC baseball game, given emotional speeches by alumni and, with about 50 other students present, serenaded by the USC marching band. Cool, huh?
After the sun went down and came back up the next day, the real Trojans showed their faces. The fun and excitement were long gone from the previous day and inserted was the glaring reality of financial aid.
Remember when I said planned? Well, this is my best evidence. I was so filled with Trojan pride after the first day of festivities, I could barely conceive the fact that I did not have the resources (i.e. Uncle Scrooge’s money bin) to pay for a USC education.
Sour feelings aside, I did take something from that experience, much like what I took from Mr. Pattiz’s speech-an imprint.
During one of those speeches at USC, the lecturer said, “Whichever college you choose and whatever you do in life, don’t look back.” That was deep.
So now, some three years later, I had begun to wonder back on my life’s path, going against the words of that phrase. Questions, like “Is all of this right for me?” or “Have I made the right choices in life?”, began to swirl through my mind.
But, almost like clockwork, my anxiety was calmed by the soothing thought of Mr. Pattiz.
The “gotta love it” motto almost intertwines with the latter. It is a check on all of those questions, which began to arise whenever my life, career or a person threw me a curve. It was the missing piece.
Loving what I do makes it that much easier to get through the day at work. If I love my classes, getting to them is easier in the morning.
Pattiz knows what he is talking about, he has been to the pay window. The proof of that can be seen on his banking statement.
So listening to his words of wisdom would benefit all who have had a chance to receive them.
Now, it becomes a matter of finding what it is that I love.
But what kind of love is it? Is it the kind where I get burned in the end? Or is it the type where I have to let it go and see if it comes back? Even still, is it the kind of love where I am blinded to the world around me? In any case, the free lesson I have learned from Pattiz is priceless.
Greg MacDonald, a junior journalism major, is editor in chief of the Campus Times. He can be reached by e-mail at gmacdona@ulv.edu.
