My biggest news (ever?) - the recovering lawyer
Big change is afoot. 👣 Today, I'm a lawyer. Tomorrow, I'm a lawyer. In two days, I become a recovering lawyer.
I'm sure you got it, but just in case I'll spell it out:
- Tomorrow is my last day as a lawyer. 😲
To many people, this is surprising. Not because I'm leaving law, but because they'd thought I'd already left. 🤷♂️
I hadn't.
I am now.
One of the gifts and the curses of my line of work, is that it's really hard to do the work (biz) without doing the work (internally). You can't just put down your head and soldier on. I've tried to do that, and I've burnt out. More than once.
As you do the (internal) work, things become apparent. Such as when you're living out of alignment. Sometimes the alignment issues fix themself. Sometimes they get worse. It's said that burnout taps you on the shoulder a thousand times before it punches you in the face, gives you a concussion, and pees in your cereal. 😐 Seriously, lots of people say this.
This is a journey 10 years in the making. I was a second year lawyer thinking: "I don't think law is for me." I didn't ignore the truth, I just tried to fix it in different ways. I moved from private practice to in-house. Then I moved from the private sector to the public sector.
Life got better, but that truth didn't go away. If anything, life being better made it harder to leave. Scarier. I worked with great people. What we did mattered.
But the truth was still there: Being a lawyer wasn't the highest or best use of my time or my energy.
I didn't leave. It was too scary.
I was doing some future-self visualizations recently, and some of them have been life-changing. In all of them, my future-self was not a lawyer. So then the question of "whether" became a question of "when".
Why not now?
It's not now because I've figured it all out. In many ways, I feel like I know less than I did when I started. It's not now because I've built up the business to cruising speed. This is still requiring a leap of faith. It's not now because I'm not scared. I am.
It's now because I'm ready. Because I see there's nothing else to wait for that I don't already have.
🧡💙
I was cleaning out my office yesterday and found a faded post-it note that I'd put there years ago. It's a quote from Oscar Wilde:
"No man is rich enough to buy back his past."
I used to have all sorts of post-it notes on my desk. It's interesting that that's the only one that survived the earlier purges, as if I hadn't quite been ready to get rid of it. As though it still had something to teach me. 👨🏫
When I first read that quote years ago, it really affected me. I became melancholic. What was I doing? I was afraid. Waiting to earn a bit more before leaving (retiring?) and living my truth. Wilde was right. I couldn't buy back this time.
Yesterday when I saw the note, it brought a sense of peace. Probably because I'm now content with my present, and grateful to my past for having brought me here. 🙏🙏
It's also interesting how faded it is now, as if it knew that my need for it was done.
Ultimately, this is really a story about courage.
Am I special? I guess so. But not any more so than you.
This is a story about one among us having the courage to live their truth. Today, that's me.
I hope you're already living your truth. Using your gifts, living your values, surrounded by those you love. If you're not - I want you to know that you can do it too. It'll be scary, but you can do it too.
This doesn't mean you need to leave your work/profession/marriage. If the happy lawyer project has taught me anything, it's that the "best life" comes in lots of shapes and sizes. Maybe just focus first on what's in alignment for you and what isn't, and see what the self-awareness stirs up inside you.
And know that we’ll be there to walk this path with you.
Until next time, dream big and live bigger.
With love,
- Paul.
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