Sour Grapes?

I've come down pretty hard on the media here the past few weeks. Trying now to figure out if some of my nattering is fueled by sour grapes. After all, I am a former newspaper person myself who got burned out by the job to the point I made some really stupid mistakes that with less understanding employers could have cost me my job. That I left at the time rather than fight the internal battle to reform myself was a good thing for me and for the paper. The wise editor who gently (and with mutual assent) showed me the door said then that things would turn out, probably, for the better. And they did. I'm on a job and in a career path that for my temperament and abilities is fitting. I'm also not dealing with the realities of The Peter Principle, as this job -- compared to the one I left behind -- doesn't leave me sitting in an area of my own incompetence. I have learned when I'm good at being a leader, and when I'm good at being a follower.

So what's the moral? Are my thoughts this week fueled by any resentment against my former career? As I see it, possibly. Mostly by regrets that I didn't work harder as a journalist, partly by regrets that I didn't take hold of coaching opportunities offered by those with more experience. And a smidge there that many of my cries for help were dismissed as unimportant or put on the backburner in favor of other priorities.

I'm glad to be where I am. I can tell that, on occasion when U'm called in to pick up the tools of my former job as a journalist there is relief that I worked on those skills (interviewing, being able to talk to multiple sources) and that I have them, and relief to that I can call on them when I want them, but not because I have to.