I Eat Therefore I Am
Lawyers get a bad rap. You've heard the jokes. Maybe you've told them. We're soulless, bloodsucking shysters who would push our own mothers into traffic for a buck. We lie. All the time. We'll lie to your face while we're picking your pockets. And then we'll bill you for it.
I don't really believe all this. After all, I'm a lawyer, and I like to think I'm a decent person. But the strangest thing happened to me today... I lost my appetite.
I didn't see something that made me sick. I didn't eat too much at lunch and not have room for dinner. I've just been under so much pressure, on so little sleep, for so many consecutive days, that I find that I don't really want to eat anything. And now I am really terrified of what I might be turning into. Is this what it means to become a lawyer? Because it feels ever so slightly like dying from the inside out.
What are we if we don't eat? If we can't taste? If we won't enjoy? Everything important in life can be found in our gastronomic experiences: simplicity, luxury, companionship, passion, pleasure and, yes, sometimes pain. Chicken soup isn't for the soul, it is the soul (but with noodles). If I have no appetite -- if I never crave and can never be sated -- what is left of me?
I think maybe all I need is a good night's sleep. But I worry. I wonder if this is a setup for some really awful punchline. Because frankly, I don't laugh at lawyer jokes as much as I used to.
Comments
jeremy -- short-time reader, first-time commenter...and fellow lawyer. :) for what it's worth, you are not the only one who feels "ever so slightly like dying from the inside out," but of course you know that. i went to Northeastern, the generally funky, alterna-L-school, and many of my classmates are working in non-traditional legal jobs, including me (the perpetual contractor). but those who are doing the 80-hour weeks like yourself are one by one leaving the rat race, no matter how much they liked it initially, no matter how used to the money they've gotten, even after only 4 years from graduation. it's just *not humanly possible* to enjoy life -- heck, to LIVE your life -- if you're working twice the federal standard, spending 2/3 of your waking hours at a desk. the sourest, most unhappy people i've ever met were the longtime partners in the firm where i used to work -- these people *stayed behind in the office* on 9/11/01 to keep working as everyone else fled home! i'm not sure what kind of law you practice, but even if you were working round the clock on a certiorari petition for a wrongly imprisoned death row inmate, it's just too much to sustain forever. i'm "underemployed" compared to most everyone i know, but i come in at 9, leave at 5, and i'll never work in a law firm again...in fact, i see myself doing something totally different, like teaching middle schoolers, within five years, loans be damned. i hope this isn't coming off as naive or new agey, but maybe you should take a break, just a break, nothing super drastic like quitting, and go away upstate and evaluate what you really want. you're obviously a hedonist (in a good way!) and these days the legal profession is a one-way ticket to anhedonia, as you are experiencing. make a change, put what's important to you first, work with people who understand that -- it's possible, and i bet you'll get your appetite back. :) $0.02 from Boston...
Posted by: emily | May 5, 2004 11:05 AM
your blog showed up on my blog completely randomly and it's very interesting. i know some days are better than others. some lawyers are scum. some are awesome. we need them. so, i hope that sleep helped the ennui you were having. a quick perusal of the front page of your blog indicates that you don't seem like the corporate lawyer type.
i work in the medical field. i see a lot of people with power who make me lose my appetite on a regular basis.
i'm realizing that i don't even know what i'm talking about and if it's relevant due to my post 5/5 tequila tasting.
oh well. will be reading more in the future.
Posted by: kirsten | May 6, 2004 10:56 PM