We had that little banter about the younger generation and you ended with “wild.” Yes, it is wild that I get to be here with these people, that xxxxxxxxx lets me do this law school thing at this age.
I’m filled with gratitude multiple times per week at what my life has become. That sentiment remains true even during exam weeks like the current one. So much purpose in the daily grind of preparation! Though “grind” doesn’t properly capture how enjoyable it is. I committed to “spaced repetition” throughout the semester instead of cramming and, damn, it works. I know everything.
This has been a year of profound learning. I remember the hole in xxxxxxxxx—elevated box hitting to a fairway that then demanded a challenging uphill 2nd shot—where you questioned me for voluntarily putting myself through an intense learning experience. I thought you were just talking about the academics. And indeed the academics have been intense. Ultimately, though, they were always manageable because law is so damn interesting. Plus, because law’s logic deeply resonates with my mental models, I was able to near-instantly push, say, Professor xxxxxxxxx and his interpretation of Justice Scalia’s footnote seven in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife.
To be clear, Professor xxxxxxxxx and all the other professors are true beasts. Lesson #1 was discovered in that fact: I’m too much like Jimmy McNulty. Fuck chain of command. Fuck bullshit tasks. Fuck however you are doing things—I can do it better. I need not learn from anyone. As is true with many of my biggest lessons this year, I have new perspective without resolution. For I love this McNulty part of myself, but I now see downsides that have long been hidden.
As for Roy Jones Jr. and Gary Smith’s[1] 10/10 article, Lesson #2 is that I should be more like Jones. That is, it’s acceptable to win with jabs as opposed to always trying for knockouts. I view low-hanging fruit (jabs in this analogy) as beneath me. I’ll leave it for some lesser person to recite the words in that footnote; I’m here to face the challenge of reconciling it with the Justice Kennedy concurrence. I’ll let someone else write a generic cover letter; I’m here to craft the best letter HR has ever seen. I’ll let everyone else ask questions about scoring well on exams; I’d be embarrassed to attend LEARN THE SECRETS TO SCORING WELL workshops and will instead figure out exams on the fly. But maybe grabbing low-hanging fruit demonstrates breadth of knowledge and allows structured grading that knockouts do not. But maybe that generic cover letter isn’t so stupid because maybe that employer is wisely running a simple conformity check. But maybe I’ve compromised less than my soul by utilizing resources and asking for the tiniest forms of help. Maybe I’m being reckless in my need to be pure and hard.
I’m so overflowing with lessons that a simple text from you could trigger a note like this. Anyway, this article is great. I am trying to be great… but I’m still figuring out what exactly that means. This year contained lots of losing. FSU instead of some better school was a loss. Mediocre grades (B, B+, A-, A-), summer job rejections, moot court failure: loss, loss, loss. These were all unexpected losses, which made them that much worse. Have I deluded myself into thinking I’m something I’m not? What the hell am I even doing radically upturning my life? Thankfully, this self-questioning was often punctured by reminders that there is at least one area where I’m already great.
It’s January right after grades were released. I’m feeling defeated and in full self-pity mode.[2] The best escape, as always, is by shifting my attention to others. There’s that cool girl from class. Let’s go talk to her:[3]
[1] Smith is my favorite journalist ever. Smith has received many awards and honors for his work at Sports Illustrated. He won the National Magazine Award for non-fiction, the magazine equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, a record four times and was a finalist for the award a record ten times. His stories have appeared in The Best American Sports Writing series a record 12 times. Some of his literary peers have called him “the best magazine writer in America” and “America’s best sportswriter”.
[2] I have a friend who carried a big stack of index cards about this thick, and when somebody would make a comment that reflected self-pity, he would take out one of the cards, take the top one off the stack and hand it to the person, and the card said, “Your story has touched my heart, never have I heard of anyone with as many misfortunes as you”. Well, you can say that’s waggery, but I suggest that every time you find you’re drifting into self-pity, I don’t care what the cause—your child could be dying of cancer—self-pity is not going to improve the situation. Just give yourself one of those cards.
-Charlie Munger
[3] Did not learn this until much later, but the woman in the text happened to be struggling because she had just received perfect grades and was overwhelmed being #1 in the class.