Member-only story
The Case for Being an Amateur Human
Joy comes from curiosity
Right as my frontal lobe was fully developing, I chose to attend law school. During the three grueling years that followed, two concepts were drilled into my head. One, you are competing with everyone. Law school was graded on a curve, meaning a percentage of us would not make it through all three years. Second, professionalism is the most important trait for any young lawyer to demonstrate. Professionalism is how you proved yourself in school, while working as a law clerk, and most critically, it was how you got a job and how you rose through the ranks at whatever firm you landed at.
Competing with everyone was exhausting, and in my third year, I realized I had no desire to work for someone else just so I could keep competing. Most of my work experience before being a law clerk was as a self-employed odd-jobber. My dad was a Silicon Valley engineer, and he had been self-employed most of my life.
I realized my only chance to make it as a lawyer, a profession I was sure I wasn't cut out for and was already deep in debt over, was to go out on my own. And so I did.
That career lasted nine years before I had a nervous breakdown. But up until the end, I was professional.
