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| | | No More Excuses | |
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< | Previously, I was able to justify this choice with excuses that seemed viable. Generally, I would say that I need to earn a salary reflective of the effort and expense I’ve incurred attending law school; that I hope to interesting, intellectual work; that a prestigious firm would provide a platform to do the work I ultimately want to do. Yet upon closer reflection, the functional significance of these rationales showed their weaknesses. For example, that I will graduate with hundreds of thousands of student loan debt tells me only that I will need to pay this money back on some time table. Thus, one purpose to which I must put my license will be to generate revenue. It doesn’t tell me that mortgaging my license at a law firm is the preferable way to generate revenue, the faster way, or, as discussed above, the more certain way. | >
> | Previously, I was able to justify this choice with excuses that seemed viable. Generally, I would say that I need to earn a salary reflective of the effort and expense I’ve incurred attending law school; that I hope to do interesting, intellectual work; that a prestigious firm would provide a platform to do the work I ultimately seek to do. Upon closer examination of the functional significance of these rationales, however, I discovered their weaknesses. For example, that I will graduate with hundreds of thousands of student loan debt tells me only that I will need to pay this money back on some time table. Thus, one purpose to which I must put my license will be to generate revenue. It doesn’t tell me that mortgaging my license at a law firm is the preferable way to generate revenue, the faster way, or, as discussed above, the more certain way. | | | Without these rationales to rely on, I sought to understand why I was remaining on a path that I understood would be harmful. I posited that when “rational” people make irrational choices, such as the one I am on the verge of making, this internal inconsistency causes cognitive dissonance: the discomfort caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. Dissonance can be eliminated by changing one’s behavior, changing one’s moral judgments of one’s behavior, or, most importantly and most typically, by repressing the portion of the cognitive stream that causes dissonance and creating a psychic split. I concluded that if I were somehow stronger, I would eliminate dissonance by choosing to skip EIP. If I had more confidence, I would get off the prestige hamster wheel and instead spend the rest of my time here investing in learning skills I need to represent clients and grow a practice, to coordinate with other attorneys engaged in similar work, and to drive a career that I can be proud of.
Moving Beyond Self-Judgment | |
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< | What I am starting to see is that this self- judgment assumes a degree of control over my subconscious motivations that it is difficult to admit I simply don’t have. I have been told my entire life that I have the final say in how my life goes, so I found it easier to excoriate myself for a choice I deemed irrational than to recognize that facets of my desires, dreams, and fears operate beyond my cognitive awareness. Admitting the latter was acutely stressful until I considered the proposition that control is something we sell as a society so that we are justified in failing to help the poor. After all, the corollary to the American Dream is that it’s your fault if you’re not rich; if anyone can make it and you didn’t, then you must have made bad choices. Another example is the ostracism of homosexuals, ostensibly justified on the grounds that sexuality is a choice and people should be shamed for failing to suppress any abnormal sexual desires. | >
> | What I am starting to see is that this self- judgment assumes a degree of control over my subconscious motivations that it is difficult to admit I simply don’t have. I have been told my entire life that I have the final say in how my life goes, so I found it easier to excoriate myself for a choice I deemed irrational than to recognize that facets of my desires, dreams, and fears operate beyond my cognitive awareness. Admitting the latter was acutely stressful until I considered the proposition that control is something we sell as a society so that we are justified in failing to help the poor. After all, the corollary to the American Dream is that it’s your fault if you’re not rich; if anyone can make it and you didn’t, then you must have made bad choices. Another example is the centuries in which homosexuals were openly ostracized, which was ostensibly justified on the grounds that sexuality is a choice and people should be shamed for failing to suppress any non-mainstream sexual desires. | | | | |
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< | Admitting that there is much beyond my power doesn’t remove my responsibility to go forward mindfully, but it does suggest that I must do so with compassion for myself. Recognizing the limits of my awareness, I can work “unsparingly but lovingly” to come into greater consciousness of the life, not just the career, I want to lead. Then, the power is truly mine to make it happen. | >
> | Admitting that there is much beyond my power doesn’t remove my responsibility to go forward mindfully, but it does suggest that I must do so with compassion for myself. Recognizing the limits of my awareness, I can work “unsparingly but lovingly” to come into greater consciousness of the life, not just the career, that I want to lead. Then, the power is truly mine to make it happen. | | | | |
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