This morning was spent on the phone. A very rare but good thing for me. It has disrupted my day a bit and so instead of drawing a comic I thought I would jot some thoughts here. Hopefully afterwards I can get back to drawing.
My first phone call was with a classmate from law school. He recently quit his big-law job and is now preparing to go traveling for a year. Why does that sound familiar?
It seems there are many of us who feel unfulfilled by our legal work and choose to cast ourselves into the wilderness. There’s a whole community of us big-law refugees who’ve gone on to do amazing things and I hope that I will be one of those people. Did you know that the Art of the Brick guy used to be an NYC corporate lawyer? You don’t even have to be doing something so spectacular. Just go and do SOMETHING. Eventually you will land and find yourself.
Yesterday I watched a very inspirational video about the erroneous obsession over finding our passion. I can say I am guilty of talking about passion as if it’s the holy grail. That somehow if I just found it, everything would click into place. And while I love to write, I am not sure I can call it a passion. It’s almost too much pressure to call it that. I love to write so I am writing and everyday I get to write something I feel fulfilled. Will I feel this way forever? I don’t know. But I am not chasing forever, I am just focused on the near future and for now that is all I can do.
I think the key take-away is that if there’s something you think oh gosh, that may be fun to do and can afford to go do it, then do it. Your passion may spring forth from nowhere. And even if you don’t ever find a passion, that is ok too.. at least you were doing something instead of waiting around for it to somehow magically appear. All this to say go and do it! The rest will follow.
My second phone call was with my mom. Since I told her about my store’s soft opening yesterday, she has been so very excited for me and working hard to promote my book to her friends and colleagues. In the midst of being proud of me, she did say to me that she felt like I didn’t spend enough time as a lawyer and that I should go back to practicing after all of this.
This is a perennial issue for me. It’s not just immediate family and in-laws and aunts and uncles. It’s hard for people to grasp the concept that I am an ex-lawyer. That that means I have ZERO desire (at least as far as I can see now) to go back to being a lawyer. I ran away from being a lawyer BECAUSE I didn’t want to be a lawyer! To be honest I never wanted to be a lawyer, even during law school (that’s a story for another day) but the point is I don’t want to be a lawyer. There’s a million and one other things I can do with my life and none of those things involve being a lawyer. I cannot say what the future holds but for now I can say it definitely does not involve practicing law. Not when I’m having so much fun drawing it and learning about it and being able to actually engage with it as opposed to mind-numbing paper-work. I suppose that’s hard for people to grasp… that practicing law, especially corporate law, can be completely devoid of law!
In any event, I suppose the suggestions and questions will continue to come and only time will let people understand that this isn’t some whim where I’ve quit my job, traveled the world and is drawing comics for fun. No, I am trying to make this my career and make this legit and dedicate myself to it. Will I succeed? Only time will tell. In the meantime I’m having a blast and I’m not going to let anyone tell me to stop doing it just because they have cognitive dissonance when they think about a lawyer who doesn’t practice law!
To my classmate who is getting ready for a trip of a lifetime – have so much fun! May the travel Gods bring you clarity and may the wind always be at your back.
Now. Back to some drawing!
-W.
