I went to law school and I wish I hadn’t.
I have thought that before. I wonder how many others have as well.
But it really does no good to feel badly about our decision to go to law school and choose law as a career. What’s done is done. We are now . . . right now . . . yup, right now . . . living our own life movies. We are the star in the movie called our lives and the audience is watching, has paid a ticket to watch, and is on the edge of its seat to see what we do next, how we face our challenges and come out ahead and be cool, or rich, or happier, or more free, or . . .
Nor does it help to think of what you could have done differently. It’s 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 – do I apply to law school . . . or apply for that sales job at that little tech company Yahoo or Google? (or for more recent graduates, YouTube, Twitter or Zynga). I can’t, and I won’t, beat myself up (anymore) over the fact that I chose to go to Hastings because it was closer to my house . . . and my buddies were going there too . . . and I didn’t really want to commute an hour or more each day to Mountain View.
Yes, the sales rep who ultimately did take that job might be sitting on millions of Google stock now, but that’s been written in the script of his or her movie, and my life movie is mine. I’ll make it, I am making it . . . my own way.
The goal is to come to terms with your decision, to be honest with yourself, to not fool yourself, to build on the positives that you took away from law school and your legal practice, and then focus on the now and the future and what you want to do with your life now and from this point forward. If you feel like you’re not succeeding, or don’t like your life, all of it or some aspects of it, now is the time to take the first baby step in changing it. Remember, failure is an event, never a person.