| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper" |
|---|
| |
<
< | NO YOU CAN'T | >
> | Liarland
(Disclaimer: All characters described are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons or situations is purely coincidental.) | | | -- By FranciscoGuzman - 19 Feb 2010 | |
<
< | The Process To Give Up
Every Child Wants to Be a Hero
If you ask a child what he wants to be when he grows up, he will probably say something incredible: an astronaut, an Olympic gold medalist, president, even superman.
Children are not afraid to be heroes, perhaps because they do not know the difficulties and risks involved. Unfortunately, in the transition to adulthood, those around them will make sure they discover those difficulties and risks. Be it tacitly or explicitly, the reaction to the manifestation of their aspirations will be: NO YOU CAN’T.
Why do people do this to them? According to Arnold, when you go against the established creeds, prejudice will compel others to oppose you. More surprisingly, even if your goals are within the boundaries of accepted rules, such as being a successful professional, you will still hear many NO YOU CAN’Ts. Although the motives underpinning these negative responses will vary, many are directed at limiting you according to your predetermined reality as measured by social class, intelligence or physical condition, among other factors.
Overcoming these obstacles is hard. Once you grow up and become aware of the "reality" those around you spend so much time pointing out, there is a high chance you will be afraid of following your original plans. You then face a crucial choice in your life: which path do I follow? How much effort should I put into it?
Desire Never Dies
If an individual does not become what he wanted to be, either because he made a conscious choice to play it safe or because the perceived obstacles seemed too great to defeat, the initial aspirations will still be there. Thus, the chances of becoming frustrated in life will be high.
Sports brands are aware of this. Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan or Adidas’ “Impossible Is Nothing” address specifically this issue. President Obama also understood this when he decided to use his famous “Yes We Can” during his campaign.
Everyone wants to believe in the message: yes, I can follow my dreams; be unique; take risks.
The Real Message
Apparently, there is no contradiction between people’s inner desire to believe that they can do anything and the message provided by commercial slogans or political speeches. Unfortunately, what reality is telling us everyday is:
“YES YOU CAN, do only what everybody else does and always within the limits imposed on you.”
Can You Really Do It?
There Are People Who Do It
There are those few individuals who are not afraid to take on the challenge of pursuing their ideals. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a good example in his fight against racial discrimination, as is Mother Teresa in her crusade to help the poor in India. Examples in less transcendental areas include Vincent Van Gogh, who was not considered a good artist during his life, or Oscar Pistorius, who has no legs and runs faster than many professional athletes. There are also many individuals from poor families who studied in the best universities making great sacrifices to pay for their education.
Why Doesn't Everybody Else Do It?
A common topic in the proposals of Holmes, Frank, and Arnold is fear and the need to feel safe. This desire for security kills the other basic need that we have in childhood, the desire to be heroes. People are fearful of being different and therefore rejected, of working in an uncommon or useless task, of not being good enough to achieve what they want.
In sum, they are afraid of failing.
What Does This Mean to a Lawyer?
A lawyer may want to change the law, to do justice, to use his profession to help others or simply to be successful. Whatever dreams he had when he entered law school are at risk of being brought down by the NO YOU CAN’Ts being constantly flung at him. The economic costs of studying, a possible rejection from a university, people telling you that you do not have “what it takes” (through bad grades or other means), are some examples of difficulties in the road to becoming a lawyer.
During his professional life, a lawyer will often be in Robinson’s situation; that is, taking a case that nobody wants because YOU CAN’T win it. He may want to practice in an area that is not well developed yet at the risk of facing a bad economic future or to found a small practice that seems incapable to compete with the large law firms. A lawyer has several reasons to relinquish his ideals and the common denominator among those is that the alternative approach is much more complicated. | >
> | “So, you are interested in arbitration,” asked me Mr. Coffee. He was an old man and almost retired. However, when he was younger he was one of the most famous academics in the field and also a well-regarded practitioner. | | | | |
>
> | “Yes, I believe that it is a growing area of practice and it would be an opportunity for me to learn it here and practice it in my country.” I said candidly. | | | | |
<
< | What Must a Lawyer Do Then? | >
> | “You are wrong!” he answered in a deep voice. “There is no real money in arbitration. You should specialize in corporate law or in IP, no one is actually interested in arbitration. People say they do and that it is important, but at the end is just a big show. All these conferences and fancy speaker that go everywhere full their mouths with great words about the subject but everything is a big lie. Look at me, I have been involved in the field for more than 40 years and the main lesson that I learnt is that if I had a dispute I would do better in federal courts.” | | | | |
<
< | The easiest thing to do is to follow the flow wherever it takes you. | >
> | I was shocked by his statements. This was the first time that we met and I came to his office because he was “the one” that could help me to find a job. He knew everybody and had an enormous influence among practitioners. I had also heard of many students who found a job just because Mr. Coffee had made a phone call recommending them. But I had to show him first that I was “good enough” to be worthy of his recommendation. | | | | |
<
< | You can complain about how things did not work out and blame the system, while you convince yourself that you are not responsible for the failure. The result will be a life without any memorable professional achievement at all, together with the frustration and disappointment that comes with it. | >
> | I had worked the whole year specializing in arbitration. Since the first day of class, when we were supposed to have “counseling” of how to succeed in this market we heard the same formula: “You have to do great, to show excellent grades in your Fall Term transcript and try to get a recommendation from a professor. If you have bad grades you are done. Grades are all that matters to employers. The good thing about it is that if you work hard and commit to it you will make it.” Confirming this, I heard several practitioners in the panels from career services saying that “Don’t be afraid of the market, if you are good enough the employers will take you. A big law firm cannot afford to loose a good candidate.” | | | | |
<
< | Although there is no magic recipe for overcoming adversity, there are two basic things that are fundamental to ensure you do not give up your goals: i) a clear purpose; and ii) the courage to do what it takes to achieve it. | >
> | I got the grades after a whole first semester making sacrifices that I had promised myself not to do here. At the same time, the partners that I had contacted highlighted in every email that I should send them my transcript as soon as I get it. Therefore, I approached the job fair pretty confident. This was my chance to get a job in arbitration, to become an expert in the field and then bring my acquired knowledge to my country. I had the opportunity to make something different, instead of the traditional corporate-practice-in-a-big-law-firm; I may even found my own “boutique” practice (I hate the word “boutique”, but now it didn’t sound so bad). | | | | |
<
< | Captain Brown knew the importance of having a purpose. His success when he fought against superior numbers in battle was because his men had a cause, an ideal. This is what allows you to maintain your course in the face of adversity. The fear will always be there, but if you really believe in what you are fighting for, such fear will be small compared with your desire to succeed every time someone tells you NO YOU CAN’T. | >
> | After the third interview I started to worry. I heard mainly excuses regarding that, although I was a “great candidate,” they probably wouldn’t hire almost anyone because the economy was bad (and this wasn’t even the call back stage, when you are supposed to hear the bad news in case you are not chosen). I heard basically the same speech during the whole second semester. As things looked bad, I approached Mr. Coffee. When he asked me for my grades I also explained him what I had done before coming to the US. He stopped me immediately and said “No one cares about what you did outside of here.” He put his feet on his desk, laid back with his arms behind his head and continued “you are a foreign and have an accent, whatever you did before is useless. You have to show that you can compete here.” “But I have stellar grades” I said. “Yes, but you are still a foreign. Look, this is America and things work this way. Every time that a law firm has to choose a partner if the decision is between several foreign people and one American, they always choose the American. It is how it is. Some foreign people make it of course. Look at me I made it. But I had to fight every day showing that I was better than the rest. Today no one gives a damn neither for arbitration nor for foreign people, everything is a big lie.” | | | | |
<
< | You were correct in the
assessment of this essay that you gave me: there's too little
substance here to hold the reader. The same basic point is repeated
too many ways: the insight—that clear purpose and courage are
necessary to overcome conformist pressures to limit
self-expectations—is valuable, but it becomes less rather than
more accessible as you repeat it, because readers tire and can be
expected to depart. | >
> | I had heard once an old woman who was a successful practitioner in criminal law to say that all what she did during her professional life was useless. That it was impossible to change the system and to actually make a difference by helping people who didn’t have anyone to help them. She died one year after she said this. I was wondering whether at the end of their life people regretted their efforts and the constant fight to succeed in their tasks. | | | | |
<
< | Revising here requires
more than inventing new ways to say the same thing. You have to push
your thinking forward along one of many lines that could be selected,
in order to go past the pep talk rhetoric. | | | \ No newline at end of file | |
>
> | After two hours in Mr. Coffee’s office, in which he explained me in several ways why I was making all the wrong choices, he told me “But I will try to help you. Leave me your CV and don’t forget to send me your transcript from the Spring Term as soon as you get it. If you graduate with honors your chances to get a job will be much higher. But again, the money is not in arbitration, so think twice before you continue pursuing this crazy adventure.” |
|