A Personal Rumination

Four years ago now I thought going to law school was the answer to all of life's problems, the promise of a path to a higher purpose.

Since graduation I have ascended hills and descended to lower valleys wondering if it was all a myth, an ego trip of some sort. The idea I could be a lawyer...just the word seemed to have so much effect (I'm sure a lot of Investment Bankers might be feeling the same sentiment right about now).

I have finally reached a place I can convincingly (to myself) say I am right where I am supposed to be. I have learned:

-my "problems" will follow me until I deal with them, no matter how good the job, the relationship, the house, the weather, the circumstances.
-inner peace is paramount to anything else, which requires one not to care whatsoever what anyone else thinks, and also requires the ability to make peace with everyone in one's life no matter what has happened (it's for me not them, but both benefit).
-the ego causes many more problems than I ever could have conceived.
-giving to and helping, in whatever capacity, someone else pays more dividends than any paying job ever can.
-my mind is a beautiful thing, but can simultaneously be rather torturous, control is a work in progress.
-out of this hell I emerge a forever changed and better person, but I am eagerly anticipating the end, while also trying to embrace patience to ensure a polished finished product.

That is all for now.

It Truly Is A Magical Place

And, now has even more meaning to me than before. I want to go to DC to work for Obama/Biden.





But now we have the delicious irony that a white president from a patrician family, whose administration was so negligent about America’s poor and black citizens, was so incompetent that he helped elect the first black president.
-Maureen Dowd

A Journey

Looking for Simpler Life, Lawyer Burns Harvard Law Diploma
Posted Oct 28, 2008, 03:11 pm CDT
By Molly McDonough

Ever want to ditch the rat race? Burn your diploma and take a vow of simplicity?

If you thought about it, but could never quite muster the courage to strike a match, you can live vicariously through "Jack," a Washington, D.C., a 30-something lawyer who announced on his blog in June that he is giving up his $300,000-plus annual salary and opting for a simpler life.

In Adventures in Voluntary Simplicity, Jack blogs about his excesses and exit strategies. Then on Oct. 27, he took a key symbolic step in that direction. He burned his Harvard law diploma and posted a video on YouTube for all the world to bear witness.

"I’ve been thinking about doing this, in one way or another, for a while now. But I was never really sure if I would be doing it for the right reasons. Not to mention how silly it sounded whenever I brought it up to people. But this weekend it all came together: the weather was beautiful, the trails were inviting and freedom seemed just around the corner. So I went for it," Jack writes.

"This is NOT a knock against Harvard. Or a calculated criticism of legal education. Or even a rejection of elitism, per se. Sometimes you just need to say goodbye to your past in order to move forward."

In the end, he concludes, "it was just a piece of paper."

I, too, have realized over the last year and a half of unemployment and being stuck in Vermont that I had placed a great deal of my self-worth on the fact that I was a law graduate. Actually, I realized that at nearly every point in my life I had identified myself and my value by something-some title, position, status label, other people with whom I associated-and so when I was no longer in law school, graduate school, or employed at some place I deemed valuable, I was lost. This has definitely been a journey for me that continues today, and hopefully I will emerge, no I will emerge, a stronger and more solid person than I could ever have been otherwise. Sounds cliche, but it's my story; I'm the one who has lived this some days nightmare other days enlightening journey for which I am grateful.

The Harvard grad's blog is: http://adventuresinvoluntarysimplicity.blogspot.com/.

I Can Empathize Kitty..

Boston Memorialized

Madonna Rocked Boston!!!

The concert was great. Madonna threw her white heart shaped sunglasses into the audience, they landed right in front of me, and a rather "weak" male was in front of me, and he hit me in the face so that he could get the glasses. I had the glasses in my hand, but I, the good person I am, relented and let him have them. Trust me-I could've taken them from him, like taking candy from a baby, but that would not have been the right thing to do. He then offered me a shot glass he had purchased to which I replied, "No thanks." Karma. It all comes around. Even Madonna said we should love our neighbor as ourselves (and someone else said that, too).

Thanks to Bubbles, not her real name, for treating us to a fabulous night!

Going to the Concert in Boston Tomorrow!!