The Law School Cliche

It only took me about 3 hours to finally start typing - not including the weeks I spent contemplating. Despite everything I have experienced since my last post and all that I have to say, I can't help but feel paralyzed once my fingers touch the keyboard. Law school, intimidating professors, countless cover letters, painful interviews, GPA calculating, and this omnipresent thing called "networking" has become so central to my long term professional goals that this sickeningly chaotic process of building up my resume for "something" in the future has taken away my ability to write honestly. I can surely still write - I can brief cases, shepardize, put together a memo, type dozens of pages of academic legal analysis, and even bolt through a three hour exam like lightening until my hands shake from carpal tunnel - but I can't just write honestly.

I was warned before law school, time and time again, not to let the profession define me. I was told that I am more likely to lose myself in the competitive job hunt before I even graduate, faced with piling school debt, than to stick with the priorities that first thrust me into my passionate personal statements.

One reason I applied for law school was that I felt an obligation to use my privilege in a way so as not to let all be in vain. Somehow, God made the call to give me some limited talent with writing and speaking and he gave me the circumstances which allowed me to develop those skills. Nearly 200 countries exist and I was magically put in the most privileged of them all. Thousands of years of men on earth and I was put into the century of the internet. So when I sit in my unbearably comfortable chair, knowing of the sickening disparity between my position and that of almost any other deserving person around the world, I expect myself to be more than another lawyer lost in the shuffle.

But that's exactly what happened. Somewhere between my ranking and my resume, I became both nothing and everything. I found myself unable to keep on top of the grading curve. Turning in application after application and not knowing why I didn't get the job or if I even wanted the job - I found myself amidst the nothingness. To pull myself up, I aimed for the best positions and the most prestigious awards. I overlooked the achievements that the elite law profession under valued - I dismissed all the qualities and characteristics that can't be written into a resume even if they make for a good person. I kicked harder and harder until I built myself up as a competitive force to be reckoned with.

Now, I find myself starting the first week of the very last semester of law school not knowing what happened to the person who was once curious enough to write an honest blog post. All I have ever known, my years of academic achievement, will be behind me soon and I will find myself in the "real world" - a world where my character and my voice, not jibberish on a transcript, will determine my self worth.

So cheers to a new year - 2012 - the year that I have been calculating since I first contemplated law school in 1999. Cheers to the year that I finally find out that I exist separately and happily from my academic achievements. Cheers to the year that I move past my self sabotage, my self criticism, and my self consciousness. Cheers to the year that I find my peace within the center of my very self. And wherever that takes me, well...I guess we will have to wait and see.