progress, which progress?

I had a memorable conversation with someone from our newspaper. it was about making progress, learning, getting new inputs. I’ve been working for five years there now and sometimes I feel like I have reached a point where I need to get a bump from somewhere. Not career-wise, but knowledge-wise. It feels like I am turning in the same circles – simply, I need education. It’s like I do know the basic stuff, but nothing more – and to me that is definitely not enough. So we talked about a course you can take with the KFJ, one of the official agencies to educate journalists in Austria. It stretches over twelve weeks split up into four different parts. So when I suggested I should go on and least check it out (or look for any other way I could gain new inputs from – e.g. take an internship over the same time with an English/American newspaper) I got an answer that still stuns me: “Why would you want to go there? We need you here, you are a gifted writer, you already know how to do it.” Basically it was telling me I should forget about the whole thing. Now I’d love to willingly accept the compliment and go on. But I know it’s simply not true. I might have potential, but I am nowhere near of exploiting it the way I’d love to. It felt like that if you show skills at some level, that’s been it for you – congratulations and have a nice next 40 years sticking around on that level until you retire. I do not want that but I have absolutely no clue on how to make myself understood.

I believe.