As I've said in past entries, the decision to attend law school is turning out to be the best choice of my professional life. I think I am setting myself up for a happier life than if I did not make that choice.
Though some people would disagree, to me law school itself is much easier than any job I've ever held. Learning new things in class from highly intelligent professors and being around young, energetic and smart fellow students will never become mundane for me.
Still, the longer I stay in school and the more the memories of bad jobs I've held fades, it sometimes is difficult to motivate myself to get up and study.
Over the years I've taught myself little tricks to get going when my mood is telling me otherwise. Many of these tricks I've learned by listening to successful people talk about how they go through life.
One such inspiration came recently. Patrick Swayze was a starring actor in probably my favorite romantic movie, Ghost. I once dated a girl whose favorite movie was Dirty Dancing. She could quote the movie verbatim, including Swayze's famous line, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." Swayze died in September of this year from pancreatic cancer.
I remember when the media announced that he had contracted the disease. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to treat, and people usually die within months of diagnosis. It is the same disease that took Professor Randy Pausch, whose inspirational "Last Lecture" is definitely worth viewing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo.
Patrick Swayze also gave a fascinating last interview of sorts with Barbara Walters. You can watch this on YouTube as well. The entire interview is useful, but one phrase in particular struck me. Swayze expressed frustration that the tabloids were predicting when his death would occur, saying things like he only had five weeks to live. "You know," he said, "hope is a very very fragile thing in anyone's life." It was tough on both him and his family to constantly hear when he was going to die.
As I get older, I appreciate ever more just how fragile hope is in this world. At one time in my life, I was game to argue about religion and all sorts of other beliefs with anyone, anywhere. Now, though, I see that if a belief gives people hope, and it does not cause harm to others, then I shouldn't try to tear it down. Life is difficult enough for us all without me trying to stir up angst and debate over things that really might not matter so much in the end.
Even more, now that I am in law school, I see an opportunity to actually manufacture hope for people. Lawyers are powerful figures in our society. As I learned from my experience this summer with Parks & Crump, bad things had happened to our clients, and we were often the only bright ray of hope they had in their lives.
So, I try to think of my future clients when I'm lacking in motivation to study. I need to be as good a lawyer as possible. I need to learn the subjects as well as I can, because people will come to me with their problems, and I will hold important parts of their lives in my hands. I need to be prepared for the fight so that I can say, win or lose, I did my best for them. I did my best to bring hope home for them, and that very often I succeeded.
My own personal hope is do this for my clients while providing comfort and security to my own family. That is why I get out of bed in the morning and go to the law school.
Off to study.
Universal Health Care Now,
Nathan Marshburn
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