Biglaw Burnout

BiglawLawyer
Thu, 05 Feb 2015 03:02:14 +0000

@‌ Rumpled2222

Before I started law school, I cared more about “prestige” although not too much. Now I don’t think “prestige” means anything. Nobody cares what I do (except maybe my immediate family) and I am the one who has to live my life, not other people. Most people don’t give a crap about anyone else or what they do with their lives. Having “prestige” doesn’t get you anything.

What does matter to me is having money, because having money can buy me a lot of freedom (from working for other people). I don’t think I’m really on the path to becoming rich though, at least not without sacrificing at least 10+ years of my life through indentured servitude. So my options are to take it easier while working for someone else and make less money or to strive out on my own and start a business and take a greater risk/higher reward. Either option seems better to me at this point than working terrible hours to make someone else rich.

Also, after accruing student loans in law school and having to pay them off, I have decided never to have a mortgage. I don’t really want all of the responsibilities that most people think you “should” have at certain periods of life.

I think what I’ve taken out of my experience is a greater self-understanding of what is important to me, and also a cynicism about people generally. Many people seem to be blindly following a path for the “gold at the end of the rainbow” without stopping to think whether it’s worth it and what we are sacrificing. Life is too short to keep sacrificing for the (possibility of having a) future.

Re: Health. After I told my mom how many late nights I was pulling, she told me I should find another job because she also told me that my health is the most important thing and that no job is worth sacrificing health. She also said that the young take for granted their health, and that without it, you have absolutely nothing.