This is long and personal. Proceed with caution.
You know what I didn't like when I was studying for the LSAT and applying to law school? I really really hated it when people would tell me not to go. Here's why. It's rude, dude! People have to make their own decisions, and I did not like being told by people that it was a bad idea. I mean, why is getting an education ever a bad idea? It is not.
I suppose now that I understand the sentiment, but I still don't think it's the right thing to do, telling someone not to go, that is. I am right about this, you know. If you think it's the right decision, you should do it. After all, I learned more in that three years than I think I learned in all the rest of my education. That is no exaggeration. The kind of concentrated study involved in law school is that intense. I'm telling you, it is a refiners fire and if you finish, you come out of it a better person for it.
What I guess is the really big surprise is what came after. You could say that what came after is a story about what not to expect. You could also say that this is the story of me being honest, really and truly honest, about being (or not being, in my case) a lawyer.
The first year was, strangely enough, my favorite. Probably you've heard the horror stories, and so you probably think that I am nuts. You guys, I do not exaggerate when I say it was a beast. The beastliest. It was really fascinating, though, and I wonder, now that it is over, if the first year was the best because of the novelty and the fact that I wasn't exhausted just yet. In fact, I think that it was probably all related to the fact that I had lots of energy. Lots of it. Law school had not yet taken my spirit from me.
And then the second year started, and I was a little tired, and the worst of my thyroid symptoms started up, so that didn't help anything. But the honest thing? The honest thing is this. Probably by the middle of this year, I knew I did not want to practice law. Still, I was determined to finish. I just couldn't start this and not finish, and I worried mostly that I would have regretted quitting for the rest of my life. I thought quitting would have been worse than completing my degree because I would have always always always wondered "if"...if I had only finished. I knew then, somewhere in the back of my mind, that I had to complete it because I couldn't live with the feelings of failure.
I question the wisdom of that choice now, but at the time, I really did think it was the best thing to keep on keeping on. At least it taught me one thing. Follow your heart. You can't go wrong when you do, and you cannot worry about what other people think of your life. There might be people who thought I was a failure, but that should never have mattered to me. The truth is, I cared too much, far too much, what others might say if I said this isn't for me. Would they think I was a quitter? That I couldn't hack it? That I did not finish what I started?
And now that I'm out and I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life, I've discovered that I cannot CANNOT CANNOT worry about what other people think I should do with my life.
By the third year, my heart wasn't anywhere near where it should have been, although I worked hard enough to pass and even to get decent grades. But when I sat and listened to Governor Christie speak at commencement, I knew who he was talking to, and I knew my path wouldn't be the path that others had taken. What I didn't know then? I didn't know it would be like this - that the path would be one of absolute confusion and at times total paralysis.
I most certainly did not think I was going to be that graduate...the one who did not ever want to practice law, but I am. So. Well.
I think that's why I've had such a hard time this past year and a half. I graduated, threw myself into studying for the Texas Bar, and didn't look back. At least, I didn't look back until the bar exam was over. In a way, the past few weeks have been like waking up. I denied the truth for a long time because I felt like a failure. Who goes to law school and doesn't practice law? I guess I do. All that time, I was really just worried about what other people thought of me.
It never really mattered at all what they thought.
And I guess that is alright. I guess it is more than just alright. I think it is perfectly acceptable to follow one dream and discover that it had many good and happy things about it but then to figure out that it's just not for you, you know?
How else is one to learn that first and foremost, you have to follow your heart, and if your heart says, "No, not this way," then it is perfectly fine and good and right to agree with your heart.
Was law school a mistake? No. I can say that unequivocally. I learned a lot - from books and from people I met. I made a lot of friends. I learned just how much I could endure. I learned that you have to live life on your own terms. So how could that be a mistake. I think the bigger mistake would be to practice law now.
Could there have been an easier way to learn this lesson? Maybe, but this is the way I learned mine, and there is no going back now. There is only one thing to do. Figure out what it is that I want to do with my life and do it. On my terms. Without any concern for what others think of my choices.
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