The Imagination Test – It’s easy if you try, it isn’t hard to do, but I wonder if you can

-- By EthanSinger - 13 Apr 2021

The Struggle of Imagination – Forcing it

One question I have always struggled with during interviews is “Where do you see yourself in X years?”

The problem is that I did not want to imagine where I would be or would want to be that far in the future. There is something confining about deciding where I want to be in X years. There is something daunting about certainty. This is a part of me that makes it difficult to imagine my future, even though there is another part of me that desperately wants to imagine.

The Simplicity of Imagination – Letting it happen

Despite the part of me that makes it difficult to imagine my future, I do imagine. For instance, imagination is why I applied to law school.

My decision to come to law school stemmed from experiences where I saw the impact that even the most minor criminal offense could have on a person’s life. In addition to the deprivation of liberty in a physical sense, I saw how criminal penalties could also impact a person’s self-perception, others’ perception of that person, and a person’s overall outlook on life. I also saw that an arrest sometimes could actually be beneficial for some by forcing them to look at their lifestyle and motivate them to change for the better. Having a good support network could be instrumental for this. I imagined myself becoming a public defender at a holistic defender’s office so that I could help clients overcome their criminal charges and change their life for the better.

My Realities of Imagination

It has been almost two years since I first imagined myself as a public defender, and in terms of picturing my future law practice, it has not progressed quite as I imagined.

Since starting law school, doubts about being a public defender have become more prominent in my thinking. Will the pay be enough for me? What role did my mother being a public defender play in me wanting to be a public defender, and what does that mean? When I imagine myself defending people, does that include defending people that have committed acts such as rape? To what extent would I actually be changing people’s lives for the better?

My answers to these questions waver depending on who is answering (at times I have told people I no longer want to become a public defender, and at times I have told people I still do), and the only certainty I now have about wanting to be a public defender is that I am now conflicted. While I hope my experiences this summer at a public defender’s office will help me with this ambivalence, part of me feels that it will be more helpful in providing experiences to help with imagining my future practice. This is because part of me realizes that my uncertainty is not only about whether I want to be a public defender, but about what it means if I decide I do not want to do the thing that inspired me to come to law school.

Imagining Returning to Law School

If I applied to law school wanting to become a public defender, and I decide I no longer want to become a public defender, it raises the question of whether I should return to law school.

It is tough to consider seriously the question however, because despite the realistic chance that I decide I no longer want to become a public defender, I have never doubted that I plan on returning to law school. To help in considering the question then, I have tried to understand why it is something I have never doubted.

The simple answer is that overall, I am enjoying law school. I enjoy being challenged like never before, I enjoy the people I am around (even though it is mostly virtual), I am learning and growing, and in the end, I will have a degree that will at the very least lend some credibility to wherever it is my imagination ends up taking me.

Most importantly though, while I am not certain that I want to be a public defender, I still want to do the thing that inspired me to come to law school: I still want to help change people’s life for the better. While that may not be in the form a public defender, it does not mean I should not return to law school, but that I should remember the importance of imagining.

Imagining Going forward

Since coming to law school, I have tried to expose myself to new experiences to learn more about the world around me. I have met new people, volunteered in activities related to helping others through education, joined a moot court and attended virtual events to hear the perspectives of people that are not my professors or friends.

In addition, I have spent many walks, many talks, and many thoughts this semester trying to better understand myself and what I want, hoping it will help me imagine a practice that meets all my needs.

Instead of answers though, I am now faced with more uncertainty in understanding myself and what I want than when I started law school.

I believe this uncertainty comes from the same state that is concerned about imagining my future. While this uncertainty is not satisfying in the interim, I do not believe this part of me is detrimental. On the contrary, this part of me can be beneficial if I can use it in harmony with the part of me that wants to imagine. As the world hopefully opens up from the pandemic, there will be more opportunities for new experiences and new perspectives which will fuel imagination. I am certain that these uncertainties will be on the top of my mind as some of the most pressing needs for my imagination to answer.

I think the draft would be improved by a clear focus on its subject. But I'm not sure on three readings what the subject is. I'm pretty sure you don't mean to use 1,000 words to explain why it's okay not to be sure whether you want to be a public defender. Yet more words seem to be about that than anything else. I don't think the subject is the high reported level of anxiety when asked to imagine your life ten years out. That level of anxiety and sense of constraint from being asked to imagine one thing, a temporary mental commitment, is relatively high and is worthy of careful examination, but you don't examine it. Actual discussion of how to build your law school program if you might (but also might not) want to be a pubic defender is absent, though it would be valuable and natural to consider in this context. You have several good choices, but you should pick one, anxiety notwithstanding.

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