This Too Is The Path: Chapter 2
We had offices back then, even first year law associates. And mine was next door to the corner office with a view of other large buildings, and below a constant stream of human ants moving about in frantic energy in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district. I was sitting at my desk staring down at a 10-page document that I had drafted. It had been edited by the senior associate. I was staring down at a sea of red ink, cross-outs, questions. In fact, the draft was so marked up that even the cover page that just lists the court name, case title, etc. was edited. As I turned the pages and tried to absorb the edits and questions, tears started to come down my cheeks. Why did I ever become a lawyer? I hated this job! I hated how hard this was. I mean, I was on the law review editorial staff, I had graduated near the top of my class, I had received mainly A’s in my classes. And here I was, at the bottom of the heap, my colleagues were all better than me, smarter than me, and worked day and night to perfect their craft. I had taken every short-cut imaginable in law school and I was simply out of short cuts. To succeed here, I was going to have to roll up my sleeves and work tirelessly. And I simply didn’t want to. I simply didn’t care.
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A few months later I’m on a jet-prop airplane flying to a small coastal town in northern California to interview some town elders in a lawsuit relating to the city government. This is one of those small town dramas pitting fisherman and other working folks against certain coastal commissioners and other public servants. The plane is a propeller prop plane seating about 16 people. The flight is miserable and loud. This is the type of plane your parents warn you about NOT flying on. But I had no choice – this was the only way to get to this town, short of a 10 hour drive. The whole trip I’m saying to myself – ‘this is so stupid. I’m in a job I hate. If this plane crashes, I will have died in vain, in service of a job I don’t even care about.” What a waste! I start bargaining with God – it goes something like this: Please lord let me live long enough to be in a job that I care about.
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I decide to quit my law job and escape by taking a job leading bike tours in France. While my mechanical skills are very poor – I have 10 thumbs- I figured that this is something I can learn. Also, I speak French semi-fluently and biking is my favorite thing to do. I decide not to tell my parents, and only a few friends know. I plan to give two weeks notice at my job and then slink out of town. I will call my parents from France to let them know. Not a brave move, but it should work.
When I tell the senior law partner that I plan to leave – I think I leave out the bike in France part of this – he invites me to lunch. While he concedes up front that of course I can leave the job, he shares that the first two years of law practice are extremely hard and that he, and the other folks at the firm, all went through a very similar trial and challenge in their early law careers. He likens early law practice to baseball – he says starting in a law firm is like going from AAA to the majors – the pitching is tougher, the schedule is more demanding and everyone is a much better player than what you found in the minors.” He then says—"if you leave now you will be leaving at the bottom, not knowing if you ever could have made it or not.” However, if you choose to say, he adds, “ I will mentor you and help you.“ At least that way if later you decide to leave, you will know..” I went through a sleepless night and then decided to stay. Calling the bike company and letting them know I wasn’t going to France was one of the saddest calls of my life.
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Fast forward about one year. I have been working hard, learning the lawyer craft, and doing what I think is a better job. While I cry less, I still really don’t like this lawyering thing at all. The same law partner who had taken to me to lunch calls me into his office. It is a Friday afternoon. He tells me that the law firm has a new class action lawsuit, that the discovery process will involve reviewing thousands of documents, and he is assigning me to the case. He says – “pack your bags, because on Monday I want you to fly to Los Angeles and spend about 2 months leading discovery on this matter.” He then references that lunch we had about a year ago, and how much I have improved. He said – “you’ve made it Jonathan…. You are now fully in the big leagues. “ He then slides a huge set of files across his desk and says.. “welcome to the rest of your life.”
I left the office dazed and confused but by the time I got home, clarity hit. The senior partner of the firm had just told me that I had made it; that I was now a part of the team. While he was saying welcome to the rest of my life, he had just given me the words that would now set me free. Now I was free to leave not because I couldn’t do the work, but because I had just been told that I could. Now it was about choice – was this the rest of my life, or was it time to find something else?
On Monday I went into his office with the huge files, put them on the desk and slid them back to him. Thank you so much for your mentorship; thank you for helping me learn the craft of being a lawyer. But this is NOT my path; this is NOT the rest of my life. I am leaving the firm. He was extremely upset and glared at me. Are you sure he said? And after I said ‘yes’ he never spoke another word to me, even upon my departure. It was time to create a new story.
Commentary
Work is such a vital part of our life experience. I became a lawyer for a lot bad reasons – including that I came from a family of lawyers, and that I was good at the law. I was also deeply afraid and insecure after college. I was too afraid after leaving college to sit in the uncertainty of not knowing; going to law school gave me something concrete, something I could ‘do’ even though it was wrong for me at the level of soul. I always wondered what would have happened if I had been brave enough to sit in the not knowing, keep working the little jobs to pay for rent, and simply see what had emerged. But that was not what I did. On the other hand, law school was not totally bad either. I developed some life-long friendships; I learned a certain type of mental rigor and discipline; and it ultimately provided a segue into work that I love. But more about that later.
Knowing when to stay and when to go is an art form. Some people even say that if you leave something before its done, that’s quitting. But with this rationale, we’d all be doing the same things forever, and we would not be able to pursue new things. On the other hand, if we leave everything the moment things get tough, we often stunt our own growth by eliminating the very situations that can help us grow. Not only that, by leaving prematurely, we generally just find ourselves back in the same situation (relationship, job, etc) which we keep recreating until it is handled and addressed. So how do we know when it is time to leave and when to stay? And how do we leave in a way that has integrity?
Questions (Your Commentary)
· What in retrospect is something you left too soon? What is something you stayed with for too long? What was the impact of these choices you made (to stay or leave)? What are the distinguishing features that have you classify one as leaving “too soon” and the other as staying “too long”?
· How do you know when you are ‘quitting’ versus just moving on to something else?
· Think about a job you didn’t like (or even hated) – what was at least one gift of having done this?
· What would your ideal work be? What would you be doing, thinking, feeling? What is at least one part of that you can have now?
· Looking at the things in your life now, what is it time to let go of? What would be the way to do this with integrity?