Feb 07 2007
Fat, Drunk, And Stupid Is No Way To Go Through Life, Son
Time for my weekly rant. This one, unfortunately, will be turned inward a bit. Thankfully, however, it will be somewhat shorter than the norm.
It has recently come to my attention that lately I've been acting like a bigger asshole than usual. And the only thing I can attribute this to is the fact that, due to my latest quarter-life career crisis, I still have no fucking clue as to what direction I want my life to go.
As I have discussed previously in this blog ad nauseum, I was never truly into the whole practice of law. I went to law school as a quick and easy means of obtaining mainstream respectability. I then went to typical route of the law firm lifestyle (that is to say, no lifestyle at all). I then, as I understand do many others, eventually got burned out with that lifestyle on a fairly consistent basis - somewhere around every 2-3 years or so.
I have become very good at what I do - practicing law, that is. Notwithstanding, after each of these "burnouts," I made several attempts to remove myself from a career practicing law. The latest of which occurred last June, at a time when my old firm was undergoing what I understood to be some ugly internal "changes" which eventually resulted in one of the firm's offices splitting off onto their own. The whole episode left a bad taste in my mouth.
As a result, I have spent the last seven (7) months attempting to find something, anything, to do other than practice law - yet again. This time, however, I've thankfully acquired the means to support myself for some time without the benefit of a regular paycheck. A great benefit, to be sure.
Unfortunately, my efforts in this regard have once again been met head-on with such poor luck and timing as to rival the crew of the S.S. Minnow. I'll not bore you with the various obstacles with which I have been faced; but needless to say, things did not go as planned.
So here I am. Once again in the unenviable position of trying to determine what to do with my life - other than remaining fat, drunk and stupid (well, stupid, at least).
Should I look for work as an in-house attorney, as I have been doing, in the hopes of melding my substantial legal prowess with my overwhelming desire to build an organization from the inside? Should I resign myself to the traditional practice of law? Should I sell my place and take the monies I would receive to travel the world's best surf spots for a year? Or should I sit in my house and continue to draft up a novel that, most likely, will never see the light of day?
Don't get me wrong, I'm under no illusions that my problems are in any way unique or, for that matter, substantial. I'm not hurting for cash, I have some really great friends, a family who loves me, and a great career to fall back on.
I know, I know … have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up.
However, the unfortunate side of my current "dilemma" is that it is making even more bitter and surly than normal. No matter how I try, I find myself passing judgment on peoples who are undeserving of such wholesale contempt (well, not entirely undeserving). It's not that I'm unhappy or depressed in the typical sense, because I'm not - not by a long-shot. It's just that my frustration is starting to get the best of me.
It is for this reason that I extend an apology to those who have unnecessarily borne the brunt of my frustrations. I just hope I figure some of these things out before I insult the wrong people (mental note: no making fun of people with guns).
If I’ve learned one thing in this life, it’s don’t do something you don’t like, or at least can’t tolerate. If you don’t like the traditional private practice version of law, then don’t do it - you’ll only cause yourself further misery down the road, unless you manage to find that fantasy office where you’re blissfully happy every day. That place is most likely also stocked with free booze, beautiful women, and constant, beautiful birdsong. Also, I have a bridge you may be interested in.
That said, how intensive have your efforts (if at all) to build your own practice been? Are you in a totally over-saturated market? Do you do practice a specialty that is underutilized, or are there dozens doing what you do? Demand is a big part of it, I suppose. But if that’s what you want to do, then you should try it until it either succeeds or truly is a total failure. Anything less and you’re wasting your time.
Of course, all of this is easy for me to say, since all I know about you involves some politics, your taste in music and your
predilection for sex with livestockapparently ample ability with the legal profession. But you asked, and that’s my suggestion. Taking time off to surf the world is a fine idea (seriously), but the question that asks itself is this: by disappearing for a year, or six months - will taking yourself out of the game for that long hurt your chances to get back in it? I don’t know, because frankly, I don’t know shit about law. The only lawyers I know do community legal service law. They are noble and zealous folks, but it’s obviously not for everyone.I’m not going to use that “follow your heart” bullshit, because the world can’t be simplified that much. But I guess I will say this: Do what makes you either happy, or the least frustrated. You may, however, have to go through substantial frustration to get to that point. I did with my career path, but our lives, despite some bizarre similarities, are very different.
My guess is this wasn’t very helpful, and perhaps a gross oversimplification. But hell, you did ask.
predilection for sex with animals was supposed to be crossed out. now my joke just looks weird.
I fixed that for you. Thanks for the advise, T. It’s not so much about the type of law or anything. It’s more along the lines of throwing away more of the equity and monies I’ve been able to collect over the past few years in exchange for nothing of physical consequence. If I go the world trip route, I’ll come back with nothing more than my dick in my hands. This is about the time I need to start thinking about retirement funds instead, right?
God, the more I talk about it, the more I sound like a whiny little bitch.
Mental note: stop being whiny bitch.
Hi there. I just found this here blog of yours and I’ve been enjoying your posts, but this one in particular kind of made me stop and think, so I thought I’d leave a little note to tell you why. I don’t expect that this will make you feel any better about your situation or anything, but just let you know that this post had an affect, at least on one person. Anyway, when I was in college, I used to work in the mailroom of a rather large international law firm. It was just a job to me, but a lot of the people I worked with had plans to go on to law school. They were, to put it mildly, rather intense about it. When I’d wander the halls of the office on my way to perform whatever menial task needed doing, I used to wonder what was going on in the minds of the attorneys. Did they like what they were doing? Did they enjoy the number of hours they were putting in? I formed some rather harsh criticisms of them, not all of which were entirely inaccurate, but still not very nice. Reading your post made me stop and think that perhaps my criticisms, accurate or not, didn’t exactly take the humanity of these people into account. They were different from me, they were after things that were shallow and unimportant, and therefore they were lesser than me, their luxury cars and corner offices notwithstanding. Your post kind of gives a glimpse into another side of what some of them may have been feeling. Not sure if any of that rambling makes sense. Anyway, have a good one.
[…] Bowl of Stupid gets credit for the inspiration here (see son, you are doing something after all ). His essay, “Fat, Drunk and Stupid Is No Way To Go Through Life, Son” sparked the firing of my synapses and resulted in *gasps* Kangintrospection. […]