Oh crystal ball, crystal ball...save us all, tell me life is beautiful!

My rather unexceptional law school experience will come to a conclusion in one month. I say that it has been rather unexceptional, because I will not look back on the last 3 years with either fondness or distaste. I have put in minimal effort and have surprisingly managed to get an acceptable return on that investment. Thanks to law school, I have come to terms with being (what I perceive as) mediocre; but, I have also become lazy. Never before law school have I been this unmotivated, which is strange since during undergrad I did not need to be motivated, but I was regardless. Since I didn't have to do much of anything to receive "As," I busted my butt in other areas of my life. Now that effort is needed to do well, I have thrown in the towel and settled for the middle of the pack. For these reasons, finishing law school does not feel like an achievement, and this is why I am not walking at the graduation ceremony. Why celebrate my own apathy? Or, more importantly, why make my family celebrate it?

[To qualify the above - law school has not been entirely awful; it enabled me to spend two months in Prague, three months in Copenhagen, and one month split up over Budapest, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Stockholm and Istanbul. This time abroad lent itself to meeting amazing people and having experiences that made me think, feel and experience life in ways law school is incapable of stimulating.]

Along with the conclusion of law school comes a confluence of emotional experiences and managing them all feels overwhelming. Somtimes my emotions change without notice, and other days I feel conflicting things. To run the gambit of feeling frustrated, elated, anxious, disappointed, weary, enthusiastic, doutful, impatient, comfortable, and content makes focusing seem impossible. A reassessment of goals is in order, and that is terrifying. What were the reasons I came to law school and are those still valid? Not really, and it is unthrilling to finish law school and think that it was perhaps not the best path to take to achieve self-fulfillment and satisfaction. But, as I (and simple physics) maintain: a body (used metaphorically for my life) at rest will stay at rest until a force is acted upon it. Similarly, a body in motion will stay in motion until a force is acted upon it. Such was the case with coming to law school, i.e., once I was on the path, on the path I was determined to be. Change is always difficult, and it's not that things are changing at too rapid of a pace. Instead, things are changing, but I simply cannot predict all the ways in which things are changing and the likely consequences.

I am a bit melancholic that law school has come and gone, as inconsistent as this may seem. It's not the experience of law school itself that I am going to miss. It's the loss of being forward-looking that I think I am starting to lament. Before starting, I had been preoccupied with thoughts such as "once I start law school..." Since starting, I have been preoccupied with thoughts such as "once I graduate..." Now that graduation is nearing, I'm not really thinking to myself "once I take the Bar..." or "once I start my career..." Why? Because I know that once I start my career, it will not be long before I am bored. There is no immediate goal that I am working towards, since retirement is far off in the future. I can look forward to my annual two-week vacation, but that is a bit anti-climactic. It feels unfortunate that I feel as though I am entering the denouement of something...my life perhaps, even though I know this is not an accurate depiction. Fortunately, this melancholy gets circumvented by excitement and anticipation when I think of all the possible avenues that are still before me. While this too feels overwhelming, it's of a good variety that leads me to believe that "the world really is my oyster."

Be rest assured, I will continue blather on about inane subjects in the not too distant future...