Motivation: Unwrapped

I don’t know how it is possible to have so much to do and so little drive to do it.

I was always a very conscientious student and my competitive nature usually meant going far above and beyond what was expected. But law school has been a whole different story altogether. I just don’t care. I’m not terribly interested in the things we read (even though I think it’s interesting). I know I’m just digging my own grave and yet, I can’t seem to get revved up and do the work. If I’m not careful, I may end up failing out. In fact, some days I think it might already be too late to avoid that. This, of course, only compounds the problem, as the impending feeling of unavoidable doom feeds a vicious cycle of “well, I’m going to fail anyway. Might as well see what’s on TV” that is slowly causing me to get even further behind.

Does this mean that I am not cut out for lawyering? What am I doing here? What am I doing with my life?

One of the greatest disappointments of life is that becoming an adult doesn’t mean that you suddenly know what to do in any given situation. I was also shocked when I became a grown-up without ever figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.

I used to think that I would figure it out as I went through my undergraduate program. After all, one of the rationales the university offered to explain the general education requirements was that it would give us a broader base of experience to allow us to decide what direction we would like our careers to take. And yet the only thing that my gen eds taught me was that I hate stupid, lazy people with a burning passion like that most people reserve for puppy killers and politicians. The fact that I have a quick temper on top of it meant that I spent most of my gen ed class time putting the verbal smackdown on the girlie-girls who spent most of the lecture chattering at normal volume about the big SAE party last weekend/this weekend/that night and the entitlement-deluded frat boys who thought they should just get an A for showing up within the first fifteen minutes of class two out of three classes a week.

After the first two years, I began seeking ways to fulfill my gen ed requirements without leaving the German department—quite successfully, I might add. I took a German Literature in Translation class to fulfill my upper-level literature requirement, a German History class to satisfy part of the history requirement, German Speaking World to fulfill part of the social science requirement, some course about Expressionism and Naturalism to fulfill the Fine Arts requirement, and so on and so forth. If I couldn’t fulfill it through the German department, I tried to stay in “German-friendly” departments. For example, I finished my social science class by taking a Linguistics course taught by a professor who spoke fluent German and liked to flaunt it in front of the class. For the small price of being called on in German every.single.day—and never about Linguistics, but rather about the weather or music or current events—I bought myself a mostly stress-free A. Plus I had a LOT of fun. One of the best classes I ever took. The professor played bagpipes in class, sang snippets of opera to punctuate his lectures, and gave us a test written entirely in a made-up language.

But I digress. My BA served mostly to qualify me to go to graduate school. It did NOT prepare me to get hired by anyone who wouldn’t have hired me before I went to college. It did prepare me to send huge chunks of my paychecks to the Federal Government in a seemingly futile effort to repay the thousands of dollars that the BA cost me, even after generous scholarships. It did NOT prepare me to make any sort of intelligent or informed decisions about my career.

And somehow I’ve drifted into law school.

What on earth was I thinking, coming here? I mean, yeah, it’s really interesting and I like the subject matter. But I have never been so miserable in my entire life and I certainly don’t know what I’m doing. I’m sure I wouldn’t hire myself as an attorney. And to top it all off, I’m not entirely certain that I even want to be an attorney.

Maybe I should just drop out and start that B & B in rural Vermont. I can start selling twee little packages of the treats I like to make – chocolate covered pretzels, pumpkin brittle, cakes—at exorbitant prices to the tourists. Eventually, someone who knows someone will spend the weekend and become addicted to my cinnamon-honey pumpkin seeds. Next thing you know, Food Network is making arrangements for a camera crew to stop by and film my process (just to annoy Finbar, I’ll make sure to touch things without gloves and not wear a hairnet) for a half-hour special. Sales and reservations will skyrocket. I will hire a staff and spend my days drinking cabernet and testing new recipes. When I open my fourth factory, I will retire from the business altogether to host my own Food Network program together with Alton Brown. John Cusack will be a frequent guest both on the show and in my spacious mansion. Ahem. Sorry, I guess I veered too far into Fantasyland there.