It’s been a while since I’ve written and I feel bad about it.  I started this blog to provide hope to people while gaining some clarity for myself.   Those goals haven’t changed.  I still need to write, and maybe others still need to read about what I’m going through.  So here I am.

But why the long time?  Because I don’t know what to say anymore.  Because I am afraid that if I see my newest plan in black and white, I won’t feel as good about it.   Because my meds have allowed me to live in the moment, and I dread the thought of reawakening my obsession with the future.

I remember this inconvenient moment of clarity that I had in law school.  It was during on-campus interviewing season, which, by the way, is grueling.  If you earn yourself a spot in the top x% of your class, you get the privilege of going on 20-50 interviews in one or two week’s time.   Going through that process teaches you a lot about a lot of things.  For me, the sheer exhaustion led to a moment of clarity, which unfortunately came in the middle of an interview.

Interviewer: What is the biggest obstacle you’ve been faced with in law school.

Me: Hmmm … (overcoming my tendency to be a perfectionist?  no, too canned … shit, shit ) … OVERCOMING MY SOMETIMES CRIPPLING SELF-DOUBT.

Interviewer: (blank stare)

I didn’t get a second interview.

But lately, I haven’t had self-doubt.  I haven’t felt crippled.  I haven’t felt exhausted from treading water, too afraid to choose a direction in which to swim.  I may as well tell you now — I’ve decided to stop resisting my current job and make the most of the opportunities it affords me.   Before you write me off as a coward or a sell-out, hear my reasons.

A couple of events planted the seeds for this plan.  The first was a job listing for a Bloomberg policy analyst whose responsibilities would be to keep up on federal, state and academic discourse relating to my clients’ industry, as well as recent legislation and regulation and their commercial effects, and then write about it.  I REALLY liked this job.  Unfortunately, it was geographically undesirable.  Just the same, it got me thinking:  the fact that I don’t like the practice of law doesn’t mean that I can’t use this opportunity to gain first-hand expertise in what I really do like:  the industry in which my clients work, and the government policies behind the laws that shape their business practices. As boring as it may sound, if I could give more detail, you’d see that it really is pretty cool.

Second meaningful event:  Cara (hat tip to you) turned me on to this guy named Cal Newport, who has a blog named Study Hacks.  Study Hacks is a career-focused blog that Cal writes primarily with college kids in mind, but which also contains some pearls for us older folks.  This post on passion was especially illuminating.  I was always uncomfortable with the “chase my passions” option.  I can’t say that it’s wrong for everyone, but I can say that it’s wrong for me.  As a kid, I would always quit things once they moved to a level beyond my natural talents.  It was the same story every time: piano, swimming, Aikido, horseback riding.  I think the truth about me is that I want the lifestyle of someone who has put the work in to become an expert in something, but I don’t actually want to put any work in.  And I get easily frustrated and down on myself when my performance isn’t preternaturally perfect.  That is both immature of me and a recipe for professional disaster.  I am a grown woman with a very intellectually challenging interest, which I believe can become a passion with mastery (or at least a high level of competence).  In addition, it is a lucrative interest, a globally relevant interest, and I am lucky enough that my current position has everything to do with my interest, and that I have great mentors, who I believe will help me get where I want to go.

That said, I’m still not sure where I ultimately want to go.  I’m still thinking writer, or maybe professor — or, since it’s a “publish or perish” world for academics, maybe both.  But it does feel good to commit to where I am for the next few years.  Now that I see my job as an on-the-job PhD. program (I credit Judith with that analogy), working late or on weekends isn’t so bad.  The commercial issues behind the contract provisions really are interesting (even if the contract provisions still make me want to shove a sharp object in my eye), and the faster and the more thoroughly I learn the stuff, the more opportunities I’ll have later on.

Through this whole process I’ve learned a ton about myself, but also about networking and self-marketing.  Sadly, attractive, slender women really do make it further in the corporate world.  I’ve seen it a number of times in my own workplace.  That said, this unfortunate reality, when paired with my new-found career commitment, has been a great reason to invest in myself and my appearance, which feels good.  I’ve been going to the gym, loving up my husband, and doing a ton of shopping.  What a novelty, this self-assuredness!

I would like very much for this clarity/euphoria/mania to last.  I would like to believe in something, keep it in focus, work for it, achieve it and have the outcome be as good as expected.  I hope that this time, because I’m focusing on an interest instead of an outcome, my self-awareness and honesty will work with serendipity to open unexpected doors.  I hope my path will unfold before me as a result of many small decisions that I make along the way and that, as a result, the life I end up with will be one that I’ve tailored for myself, that will reflect my core values of family, friendship, leisure, learning and mastery.  I choose leave this dream unhindered by cost-benefit analyses and “realistic”, pessimistic or cynical hedging.  I choose to just let it be and expect the best.

Call me spoiled or criticize me for want of instant gratification, but I’m getting a bit tired of this reinvent myself, change my life thing.  Perhaps it’s because I’ve since been medicated, so life doesn’t seem so bad (read: misery is motivating).  My exasperation may also stem from talking to lots of people who all sing the same chorus of “publishing is really competitive, there are people who have been doing this since the cradle, you have to be really aggressive, you’re not going to make any money, try doing x, y, and z which, by the way, you’ll never have time to do because you’re a Biglaw associate, etc., etc., etc.”   It’s also possible that I have a really, really short attention span.  Or maybe it’s a combination of all of the above, which, in the aggregate, is making the whole career transition thing just a little too risky for this corporate lawyer-type.  The whole situation reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, from BBC’s The Office:

“If you look at life like rolling a dice, then my situation now, as it stands – yeah, it may only be a 3. If I jack that in now, go for something bigger and better, yeah, I could easily roll a six – no problem, I could roll a 6… I could also roll a 1. OK? So, I think sometimes… Just leave the dice alone.”

So what’s the risk?   Money.  Bad marriage.  Unstructured, meaningless existence that never amounts to anything for lack of talent/skill/luck/ability to execute/tenuous grasp on reality/poor people skills.  DOOM.

Money is a strange thing.  For instance, I don’t need my full corporate lawyer salary.   Most of what my husband and I don’t spend on vacations goes straight to my savings account.  I’m also fairly low maintenance — not even one of those high maintenance women with a low maintenance self-image, but genuinely low-maintenance by Manhattan standards.   I can name on one hand the luxuries that I don’t want to live without.  Given the savings that my husband and I already have, all of those luxuries are all within reach, assuming things go reasonably well.  But like I said, money is a strange thing.  More important than the things it can buy, money can impart power.  And with that, we arrive at the real concern:

What will financial dependence do to my marriage?  Not to mention, the way I was raised, leaving yourself that vulnerable is tantamount to becoming a porn star — loaded (no pun intended) with consequences.  You just don’t do shit like that.  While it is acceptable to give up your job temporarily to raise a couple of kids, in my family, you better keep up your professional license(s) while you do it, in case you wake up to find yourself widowed, divorced, extorted, beaten, or otherwise disempowered.   And just giving up a career, handing your partner all of that power, in the absence of procreation?  Risky business.  When I told shrink #1 that quitting my job would be easier if I were single, because then I could just move back in with my Dad, rent-free, while I figure out The Meaning of It All, she informed me that this sentiment is abnormal.  And for those of you who aren’t in the know, shrinks just don’t throw around the word “normal” (or words that include the word “normal”).  But is it abnormal?  This article makes me feel like it is actually kind of normal, at least up to a point.

I recognize, however, that after said point, my neuroses take me beyond your everyday marital politics.  This is exacerbated by the fact I married a young Scrooge.  In fact, I would say that most would be shocked at the amount of arms-length negotiating that goes on in our home.  Although with a corporate lawyer and a stockbroker, completely unleashed in only 800 sq. ft. of space, with only a dog to mediate, perhaps our dynamic isn’t shocking at all.  That said, a domestic power struggle wouldn’t be so daunting, and probably wouldn’t even cross my radar, if I knew I could get my shit together eventually.   Unfortunately, I have no such knowledge.

The truth:  I am a closest slacker.  A burnt-out closet slacker, to boot.  If given the opportunity, I’m afraid my inner slacker will escape and wreak havoc on the stable life that I’ve worked so hard to create.  My husband will be like, “Who the fuck are you?”  I will be like, “Fuck, I really am an underachiever.”  And in the back of my mind I will hear the constant echo of my grandmother’s voice saying, “She was doing so well and then she just quit!  To be a writer! (Scoff) Now she can’t find work and he’s stuck paying all the bills.  Thank god you taught her to marry well!” Reality check:  I’m sure I’d figure something out.  Knowing that I’m an intelligent, resourceful person, however, doesn’t change the way it feels.  When people suggest that I quit my job to freelance write, I feel nothing but terror.  Too unstructured.  Too risky.  Too much pressure.

So, given my particular baggage, I am refocusing my search.  While still open to editorial assistant jobs, I’m going to put more effort into finding a less demanding legal job that will allow me to make a living while I take journalism classes, freelance write and otherwise test the waters in my … (wait for it) … FREE TIME.   The fear here is the liklihood that this option will be a long road to nowhere, which, no matter where it leads, will inevitably will be cut short by my biological clock.   In response to that fear, I think of a comment to my Twilight post, which has stayed with me.  While calling my post “trite” (which we will ignore), commenter #226 advised that “[t]aking things for granted is a part of life … Epiphanies occur intermittently where some person suddenly realizes life is short and feels the need to carpe diem the hell out of it. Life is long, really long. If you can derive some joy from the littlest thing like a good piss then you’re on the right track.”  The point: perhaps the destination is less important than the journey.  Long road to nowhere, here I come.

The phrase, “quarter-life crisis”, always sends me back in time, to the tiny little bedroom of my tiny little Upper East Side apartment.  It was about five years ago, and I was sitting on my queen-sized bed, which took up the entire width and most of the length of the room, talking on the phone with one of my best friends from high school.  We were both in our third year out of college.  She was a psychology major, working in insurance sales.  I was in law school.  We were both single.  I remember spending almost four hours on the phone with her that night, rolling around in my bed and giggling often as we analyzed and obsessed about our respective futures.  During that call, we were each online researching divorce rates (tailored to our demographic), psychologically profiling ourselves and of course, consulting our Inner Realm horoscopes.  We discussed the various “signs” and “existential coincidences” that we had each encountered, begging the other for some new perspective on What It All Means.  We were grasping at straws, desperately seeking the answers to the rest of our lives.  Together, we decided that we were in quarter-life crisis.

Lately, as readers of this blog can attest, I have been having serious anxiety about my life and purpose.  In fact, I would venture a guess that perhaps this is my quarter-life crisis.  And that got me to thinking: what really is a quarter life crisis, anyway?

Unfortunately, time constraints require that I look no further than Wikipedia for the answer.  According to Wikipedia, a quarter-life crisis occurs when, “[a]fter entering adult life and coming to terms with [their] responsibilities, some individuals find themselves experiencing career stagnation or extreme insecurity.  The individual often realizes the real world is tougher, more competitive and less forgiving than she/he imagined.”   The Wikipedia article goes on to explain that a quarter-life crisis will occasion some or all of the following symptoms:

• feeling that the pursuits of your peers are useless
• confronting mortality
• watching time slowly take its toll on your parents, only to realize you’re next
• feeling insecurity regarding the fact that actions are meaningless
• feeling insecurity concerning ability to love yourself, let alone another person
• feeling insecurity regarding present accomplishments
• re-evaluating close interpersonal relationships
• lacking friendships or romantic relationships; experiencing sexual frustration and involuntary celibacy
• experiencing disappointment with your job
• feeling nostalgia for university, college, high school or elementary school life
• tendency to hold stronger opinions
• boredom with social interactions
• loss of closeness to high school and college friends
• financially-rooted stress (overwhelming college loans, unanticipatedly high cost of living, etc.)
• loneliness, depression and suicidal tendencies
• desire to have children
• feeling that everyone is, somehow, doing better than you
• experiencing frustration with social skills

Whoa.  If I had a quarter-life crisis five years ago, I am clearly having another one.   Although this time, I would would have to add “fantasizing about being your dog” to the list of symptoms.  Regardless, I have to say that the anxiety I felt more than five years ago was a mere tremor compared to the massive earthquake that shook my life after getting married/reading the Twilight series.  Fortunately, this is extremely encouraging for a couple of reasons.

First, this is black-and-white evidence that I am not alone.  Despite the fact that I’ve been lucky enough to find many others who feel the same way, it’s nice to see that our common denominator is more than a random identity of discontent and isolation.  This thing that we’re all experiencing is actually a completely normal, systemic affliction.

Second and more importantly, reading about my existential angst in the context of a quarter-life crisis is black-and-white evidence that my angsty friends and I will get through this.  A crisis is defined as a point in time or one period in a larger sequence of events.  This means that a crisis, by definition, can not be permanent.  The chances are good that everything will work out and we will each achieve equilibrium.  Such is my Monday zen.

As a side note, in writing this post, I had to take a peek at my Inner Realm horoscope, for old time’s sake.  I was floored:  

“Taking your life more seriously and trying to turn your goals into a reality seem to be your priority issues.  You are working very hard to make things work out.  You are handling life with much more maturity.  Your ambition and energy are reflected in what you want to accomplish.  Changes are around you, but you are not going in the direction you imagined.  You seem tired of letting life run you and are taking the bull by the horns and seem more in control of your own destiny.  There is lots of activity, hard work and determination in your career.  What a wonderful time to get a promotion or look for a better job.”

I shit you not.  I have to go call my friend from high school.

Or at best, it’s a neutral tone.  Regardless, it isn’t chromatic.

I returned to purgatory on Sunday night.  Good, in that I didn’t have too much time to anticipate my return to work; bad, in that I was returning to work.  Napa was truly wonderful, as any place with amazing food, good wine and beautiful landscapes would be.  Highlights: the “taco truck” bloody mary at Ubuntu, made with clarified heirloom tomato juice and soju (among other, wonderfully tasty, things), running around (tipsy) with my husband in the cool night air, seeing Thomas Keller (because who doesn’t enjoy a celebrity sighting?), and flipping through a coffee table book dedicated to Tom of Finland (a highlight only in the sense that I will never be able to forget what I saw on those pages). 

But back to the subject at hand.  The networking event for professionals in publishing — the one that I had invested so much hope in, the one that was supposed to be my coming-out event — didn’t happen.  Whatever planet rules work-life balance must have been in retrograde last Thursday, because I was even more inundated with work than usual.  I find it a little bizarre that this happened on such a special night for me, but perhaps it wasn’t bizarre at all.  Either way, I worked through all of my meals, until my head hurt and I couldn’t see my computer screen anymore.   

Anyway, on the plane home from California I continued reading “What Color Is Your Parachute?”  In fact, I studied it.  I read and reread certain chapters, did a bunch of exercises, got the T-shirt.   While the book is teeming with useful guidence, the following exercise is particularly enlightening:

First, define yourself in ten words and then write each word at the top of a different sheet of paper.  My ten words, for example, were something like “creative, independent, gracious, learner, wordsmith, sophisticated, organizer, futuristic, ambitious, whimsical”.  Then on each page, write why you chose that word, why it appeals to you and (I would add) one or two instances in which you demonstrated that trait.  Next, put each page in order based on which you think best describe you.  Finally, identify themes that run across the pages and put together a cohesive statement about what your job would have to involve in order to best serve all of the traits you’ve identified.   This exercise helped me come to the conclusion that I am much better suited for the magazine world than for the world of book publising, because I thrive on a diversity of information and experiences — different tasks, varied subject matter, different roles.  After my plane ride, my parachute was a palette of burgendies — still mostly dark, but with spots of incandescense, not entirely unlike the zinfandels and cabernets that I had been swirling around Napa all weekend.

Sadly, the book stressed the importance of networking.  Two of the least effective job hunting methods: responding to internet postings and blindly sending out resumed.   The most effective job hunting methods: targeting an organization and using your contacts to get in front of the person with the power to hire you (irrespective of whether the company has posted job openings), and various other forms of networking.  Perhaps my recap is over-simplified, but the point is that you have to sell yourself.  You have to put yourself out there and people have to like you, every step of the way.  This is not my forte. 

So now I am back at work, inundated, facing my ineptitudes vis-a-vis netorking, not to mention the very real possibility that if I can manage to jump at all, I may end up leaving purgatory for a job that works me just as hard for a quarter of the salary (I would be inclined to call that “hell”, although I realize qualitative factors should, in theory, come into play – more on that in another post).  Needless to say, my parachute is reflecting black.  Maybe it’s not really black, but that’s what I see today.   I remain hopeful, but I can no longer deny just how much work it is going to take in order for me to make a seamless transition. 

There is a woman who works down the hall from me, who I run into at the coffee machine every morning.  This is notable, since we both arrive at the office absurdly early by Biglaw standards.  She is making a career transition from graphic designer to non-profit administrator and has been working full time, and going to school part time, for three years now.   No one promised this process would be fast.  No one promised that it would be easy.  Luckily, there is so much to learn along the way.  That will have to be my focus.  Each day I am faced with this new challenge and as I learn more about myself and the society that I inhabit, I get closer to where I want to be.   That will have to be enough for now. 

Until I pull the trigger on “Project Jet Blue” and just fucking quit.

Very luckily, I have an awesome husband who does cool stuff like suprising me with a trip to Napa for my birthday.  So I am peacing out on Friday, and leaving my bullshit behind for a weekend, in order to enjoy my husband and all of the greenery, good food and coastal views (maybe) that northern Cali can possibly offer us in two days.  Because of this, however, I must work extra hard today and tomorrow, since I don’t want to be in the awkward position of having to leave my bosses to finish my work (which they would have to, since I absolutely refuse to cancel this trip or to work while in Napa).   Plus, I think they may be trying to work me to death — since my death would be cheaper than laying me off (I think they have life insurance me, to boot) — and I’m not havin’ any of that.

SO, below is a quick update.  I left work early yesterday, feeling sick from exhaustion and insufficient nutrition (have been living on lattes, cupcakes and Excedrin for too many consecutive days), and so got a LOT done on my career/job search, while laying on my couch in sweatpants (best working conditions ever):

1.  My brother was great in tracking down some publishing industry leads (or at least people who may be able to get me access to publishing industry leads) and I e-mailed two of those people yesterday.  One has responded, with a promise to provide more info in the next couple of days.  I am optimistic.

2.  My father was a bit of a pussy in tracking down leads for me, so it looks like I”m going to have to take matters into my own hands there.  He has a colleague who has a daughter, who used to be an editor for now-defunct Madmoiselle magazine.  The colleague didn’t offer up his daughter’s contact info and my Dad is too gentile to be so forward as to ask, so I’m going to call up the guy my damn self … sometime next week.

3.  In an effort to keep my ears open for networking events and helpful information, I put myself on the mailing lists for (i) The Media Counsel at the Paley Center for Media, (ii)  Women in Periodical Publishing, (iii) NYC Women in Publishing, and (iv) Women, Action & the Media. 

4.  Requested membership, or at least information on which other groups to join, from the News Women’s Club of New York and Women’s Media Group.  Both groups seem really hardcore, power-women-in-media-ish, but maybe something will come out of the inquiry.  Probably not, but maybe.

5.  Started an exercise that Judith gave me.  You divide a piece of paper into two columns.  In the left-hand column you write an affirmation designed to address a specific fear.  For example, “I, Samantha Alexander, now allow myself to blaze my own trail.”  Then you write it twice more, once in the second person and once in the third person.  Every time you write an affirmation in the left-hand column, you write in the right hand column the thoughts that immediately come into your mind upon writing whatever you put in the left.  Repeat.  A lot.  Then read back everything in the right hand column, thank yourself for your opinion, and move on.  It’s kind of cool.  My husband kept talking to me, so I could only do about 10 mins of it, but I plan to pick it back up on the plane to Napa.

6.  The outfit for the cocktail party will be knowledge of my skills and accomplishments, paired with confidence and genuine desire to get involved, wrapped up in a cute black dress by Nanette Lepore that says “professional”, “young” AND “creative”.  And it has pockets for easy access to my business cards (one of Judith’s tricks), on the back of which I will write the name of the event that I will be attending, so that maybe the people to whom I give cards will remember who the hell I am (another of Judith’s tricks). 

7.  Read through the website of the Association of American Publishers, which is super-helpful because (i) it has a job listing page that’s free to access and (ii) it gives a really great overview of the book publishing industry and the kinds of jobs/functions within it.

Agenda for next week: track down law school professors and alums in entertainment law (since that may be an easier first step to make), work on my information request letters to editor-alumni, track down Dad’s colleague’s daughter, call husband’s third cousin’s friend, who was a magazine editor before she got laid off last year, and mother’s second cousin, who reads scripts for something, and work on some of the exercises in “What Color Is Your Parachute?” — since right now my parachute is a rainbow-colored tie-dye, which I probably isn’t ideal.

Until next week …

[Image via Manic World]

On Saturday, Judith had me visualize a day in my life in the year 2020.   She had me look at myself in the mirror in the moments before leaving my home.  She had me see what I was wearing, get into my car, drive to my place of employment, say hello to my assistant, and read a letter notifying me that I was being honored for my life’s work.  We were at the point where Judith instructed me to visualize what exactly I was being honored for.   I couldn’t take it.  The tears had been welling up since I saw what I would be wearing in 2020.  I started crying like a little girl.

Fact:  I hated the outfit that I imagined myself wearing.  I hated the bedroom furniture that I saw.  I hated the life that I visualized.

Fact:  I could not think of one thing that anyone would ever honor me for.  I don’t really know what I’m going to do with this life of mine.  More telling, however, is that at this point, my real goal is just to be left the fuck alone.  Who is going to honor me for that?

It probably didn’t help that I worked 80 hours last week, that my 80 hours were not enough, that the transaction I’ve been working so hard on is particularly painful and the work particularly tedious, that it was my Mom’s last weekend in town and I wasn’t able to spend it with her, that the weather was beautiful but I was chained to my computer.  It also didn’t help that I’ve been killing myself for the last ten years.  I. Am. Tired.

Right now, I’d really like to be one of those people who calls up other people at dinner time and tries to sell those other people magazine subscriptions.  That sounds like a really nice job.

*sigh* I must keep on keeping on.

Judith gave me some pointers on my “please help me figure out the purpose of my life” letter.  The problem was that I wasn’t specific enough about what exactly I wanted the recipients to tell me (you all were right) and that I didn’t demonstrate an interest in the recipients, specifically.  Once I draft I new one, I will post it – maybe a good example, assuming I make one, will help someone else in their own escape from misery/search for fulfillment.  But this whole thing brings me to another obstacle:  people.  As a general matter, I don’t love people, and have carefully engineered my life so I never really have to depend on anyone liking me.  Oh, you don’t like me?  Go fuck yourself.  Or better, I don’t like you?  Whew!  Good thing I don’t have to deal with you!   The whole job search process, however, especially in this economy, is really people-driven.  Fuck me.  Thank god I have therapists.  Lots of ‘em.

In recounting my experiences, I typically try to extrapolate from them some kind of lesson, message or insight.  Today, I am at a loss.  Maybe, as a psychic once told my Mom about me, before the universe will free me from my Biglaw shackles I must learn the lessons of tolerance, patience and understanding.  I hate my job, I am in pain.  I need to tolerate it – to suck it up and do what I have to do; to understand that this job, this lifestyle, will not be forever; and to have patience with my journey – to trust that I will get where I am meant to go, when I am meant to get there.  I would also add to that belief.  Belief in myself – that I can achieve the things that I want to achieve – and belief in others – that most people really aren’t douchebags and that some of them will even help me get where I need to go.  Or maybe I need to learn to grow some balls and go all Steven Slater on my work life.  Either way, lots of lessons …

Incidentally, that same psychic also told my Mom that I will have to learn how to market myself and how to hustle, which brings me back to the present:  What does one wear to a publishing industry networking event?  Thursday’s the big day!

I was expecting Moscow to be a drab, gray relic of Soviet days past.  In many ways, it inevitably is.  But underneath all of that gray is a pulsating city that pushes its way through its own drab exterior, exploding in jagged rooftops, 4-inch stiletto heels, tinted Mercedes and displays of power the likes of which I have never before encountered.  The honesty of Moscow is jarring at first, but on second glance, that same honesty is breathtaking.  Moscow isn’t restrained by a “civilized” packaging.  Moscow is a city lying open, raw, exposing its humanity for all to feel.  And because of that, Moscow is the most exhilarating place I have ever visited.

Manifestations of wealth and power, however, are mere symptoms of that which lends Moscow its intrigue.  To an outsider like myself, with few ties to the country and only a cursory understanding of its people and history, Moscow is a theater of human survival in the modern world.  The failed Soviet experiment creates an ominous backdrop for the story of a country and its people struggling to navigate the pitfalls of capitalism.  Money.  Sex.  Power.  The basest of human desires play out right on the surface, without excuse.  As I sat up at night, gazing out at the city through the walls of our glass-encased hotel room, Moscow infected me with its vitality, which is nothing less than palpable.

What I love most about Moscow is that it is unapologetic.  I recently finished reading Bel Ami, the fictional tale of Georges Duroy, an aspiring young journalist in late 19^th century Paris.  In a quest for power and driven by greed, Duroy infiltrates a club of Parisian media elite using little more than sex and manipulation.  The interrelationship between money, sex and power, so well portrayed in Bel Ami, is a theme that transcends time.  In the socio-political context, money and sex are the accouterments of power; they are the means, the motivations, the symptoms, the prize.  The difference between Moscow and Duroy’s Paris – or, for that matter, between Moscow and many of today’s major cities – is that Moscow doesn’t concern itself with niceties, nor does it distract its visitors with illusions of magnanimity.  Betrayed by its history, Moscow is honest.  It wants power, and all of the sex and money that go along with it.  You can scoff, wince or cower at its brashness, but Moscow will tell it to you like it is.  A feeling of exhilaration is a natural result of the sheer proximity to those barely checked, barely restrained, base desires.

I liken a few days in Moscow to a ride in a Formula 1 race car.  While invigorating for the first few laps, it soon becomes evident that my weakened constitution and underdeveloped instincts could not sustain me as a race car driver.  Moscow would eat me alive and that captivates me.  Like a child awed by an older sibling, I want its strength for my own.  All I can take from Moscow, however, is a lesson.  For me, that lesson is that the option of passivity is as much a luxury as it is an opiate.  Sometimes, you must take from life what you want from it.  Maybe I won’t manipulate, or steal, or otherwise engage in morally questionable behavior, such as cheating pensioners for their shares in undervalued, state-run enterprises; but I won’t wait for life to hand me my fate on a platter, either.  As has been my custom of late, the theme returns to “carpe diem”.  Moscow, you inspire me.

[Image via Craig Harper]

I have spent a lot of time and money lately agonizing over my skills, talents, values and aspirations.  What do I enjoy?  What am I good at?  Where will I fit in?  Where can I find a job that will ask me to strengthen my talents more than it asks me to overcome my weaknesses?  Far ahead of my self-imposed November 1st deadline, I decided that the right job for me is writer/editor.  There!  Decision made, hard part’s over.  What a relief!

Now all I have to do is contact my alma maters for lists of alumni in publishing and unearth everyone I can who may be able to help me identify opportunities and how best to market myself.  Yay!  I’m in the fast lane to self-actualization!  I wonder if I’ll still be at the firm when it comes time to close this hellish transaction that I’m working on.  Maybe I can tell the senior counsel to shove that stock purchase agreement up his ass!  Yes, I will tell him to shove it up his ass and then I will take my desk lamp and leave, and only wear Levi’s and t-shirts for the rest of my life.

NOT SO FAST.

The alumni contact information garnered through my law school career placement office was about as accurate as next week’s weather forecast.  I moved on to my contingency plan, which involved a search of Martindale for lawyers in major publishing houses.  I searched Hearst, Time Inc., Random House, Penguin, Conde Nast, in each case clicking on every name that came up to see whether it belongs to someone who earned a J.D. at my law school.  Nothing.  How can this be??  In desperation, I used Martindale to search lawyers in every Manhattan organization that uses some variation of the word “Publish” in its name.  Sterling Publishing, Publisher’s Weekly, American Express Publishing.  Nothing.  Why, I wondered, did I not keep in touch with that guy who asked me out after our “Acting for Lawyers” workshop?!  He’s an entertainment lawyer now.  I bet he knows … people who publish stuff.

The career services office of my undergraduate institution was more helpful.  The staff there provided me with a very promising list of fourteen alumni holding titles like “Senior Acquisitions Editor, Princeton Architectural Press”, “Executive Editor, Random House”, “Assistant Managing Editor, Hearst Corporation”.  The list is impressive, I must say.  The responses to my inquiry e-mails … not as impressive.  It has been two days since my first alumni e-mail blast:

“Dear [X], I am an alumna of [Y], class of [Z], currently employed as a corporate lawyer and interested in making a transition to the publishing industry.  [Y's] career services center provided me with your name, suggesting that you might be amenable to talking with me about the publishing industry and related career paths.  More specifically, I am seeking information that will help me identify which roles/jobs would best fit my skill set, personality and objectives, and how I may successfully market myself for those jobs.  I realize that you must be very busy, but if you have the time and the inclination, I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to hear your thoughts, either via phone or over coffee.  Best regards, Samantha Alexander.”

I sent that message to three editors.  I have received responses from zero editors.  Was my message so awful?

*sigh*  Surely I have friends and family — and access to friends of friends, and family of friends, and other people — who can lend insight or provide job leads?  Surely.  Mother’s friend, celebrity-ish chef, published author: “I’m sorry to say that all I know from publishing is people losing their jobs.”  Fan-fucking-tastic.  Excellent news. 

Thankfully, I still have in my arsenal a remote family connection, an even more remote acquaintance, a friend of my husband’s third cousin, and about seven alumni leads from my undergraduate institution.  In addition, I can still try contacting my original three alumni leads via telephone.  Maybe they get hundreds of e-mails per day, and didn’t see mine.  Or maybe they are just very busy.  I even e-mailed Joy, WordPress Editor Czar, and asked her where WordPress posts its job listings (don’t all the WordPress people look happy in their group photograph, standing on a nice patch of grass, dressed in machine washables?  I think there were even trees in their previous photo.  Trees!).  Joy got back to me.  Maybe the editor-alumni will, too.

At this point, however, I am feeling the chinks in my armor.  My optimism is down, I have flashes of despair, and I am experiencing slight nausea related to anxiety about my future.  Yes, the tides of my existential crisis are steadily rising.  How long will I be stranded in Biglaw?   Maybe I should just get pregnant.  No.  Bad reason to have a baby.  Maybe it’s time I added a psychic to my entourage of service professionals.  Or maybe I will just focus on one day at a time.  Yes.

Taking the reins of my life seemed like such a straightforward, fool-proof plan.  What could be easier?  When I want something, I take control, focus my energy and get where I want to go.  That is standard operating procedure; mechanical logic.  If I focus, then I achieve.  But this feels different — a different kind of goal, a different kind of challenge.  I can’t have control, because someone else does.  Some yet-to-be-seen editor will control whether I get my shot.  Or even better, some yet-to-be-seen person will control whether I even gain access to the yet-to-be-seen editor who will control the rest of my life.  Self-promoting in Manhattan, in a changing industry, during “the great recession”.  Yes, this is a very new kind of challenge.  Luckily, any urge I may have to resign myself to my fate is not nearly as strong as my desire to make more of my life.  Somehow, something has got to give.  I have to be more creative.  I must focus more, try harder.  *sigh* One day at a time.

Everyone loves to hate on Biglaw, myself included.  But in an effort to be balanced, and to avoid leaving a trail of terrified law students in my wake, I thought it might be refreshing for all to hear some good things about Biglaw.  I also wanted to explain a little about my relationship with Biglaw and why it reminds me of eggplant parmigiana.  Here goes nothing:

1.  You can meet very interesting people, who have done very interesting things.  For example, many of our clients have led inspiring lives.  It is always interesting to learn about these people and how they arrived at where they are today.

2.  In an extension of my first point, many of the partners that I have worked with have held high positions in government, have led newsworthy transactions, or are otherwise pretty accomplished.  I have been lucky enough to find more than one of these impressive people who are also educators by nature.  They have truly mentored me, spending a good deal of time teaching me about our clients’ industries, the major players and our role as their attorneys. 

3.  If you’re not particularly organized or detail oriented — or if you are typically hesitant to take full responsibility for large, scary tasks that you know nothing about and have never before attempted — Biglaw will force you to take the reins and hone those skills.  Before Biglaw, I was known to leave my apartment without my wallet, keys or Metrocard.  I often became entangled in my own loose ends.  Not (as much) anymore.  Whatever I do next, I will owe any smooth execution to time served in Biglaw.

4.  A miserable bunch of junior associates makes for a great group of friends.  Not unlike boot camp, the misery of Biglaw creates enduring bonds.  I will forever treasure the laughs shared with my comrades at our own expense.

5.  Along with great colleagues, there are some really fucking ridiculous ones.  I’m talking stereotypical, rich, white guy stuff.  It’s good to know that there are people like that out there in the world, to understand them and shore up your defenses, and to laugh at them once all the rest is done.

6.  If you don’t like your family or friends, you don’t have to see them that often.  This can be a curse (like having to work on Thanksgiving or cancel a vacation, for example) or it can be a blessing (like when you can say, “oh, I would love to come to your two-year-old’s birthday party, but I have to work”, knowing that your mom-friend will believe it, because most people expect and accept that Biglaw associates always have to work).

7.  If you decide to be a transactional lawyer, there’s a chance that some of your deals will be sexy and you can feel good about yourself when people “ooh” and “aah” when you talk (in very general terms, of course) about those sexy deals at cocktail parties or other social gatherings.  Even better, if you actually like highly (highly, highly, highly) technical, business-y stuff, you might even find your work interesting.  Or at the very least, challenging in a not-completely-painful way.

8.  People assume that lawyers — Biglaw or not — are really smart and capable.  This is what Judith calls the “halo effect”.  All of a sudden, your credibility goes the way of your bank account balance, which is to say UP.  Way UP.  It can be embarrassing in the first couple of years, as you may feel that you don’t deserve all of that goodwill, but it can be satisfying once you grow into it.

9.  It’s likely that your conference rooms are kind of sleek with cool views, so if you try really hard you can pretend that you are a character in a movie and not totally miserable.

10.  There are many instances in which the firm or a client will subsidize your food costs.  In addition to late nights in the office (the best-known basis for Biglaw free food), there are also lesser known skills training sessions, information sessions, meetings and other fairly regular events at which free lunch or hors d’ouvers are served.  Even if you weren’t invited to participate in the event, there are almost always leftovers for scavenging attorneys and support staff.

Now to the eggplant parmigiana.  I went through a phase of tinkering with my aunt’s famous recipe.  On the evening of the first such experiment, and after choking down an entire plate of my creation, my father, forever known for his gentile demeanor, gave his review:  “You know … it’s very g-… it’s very … very … not bad.  Very not bad.”  He later confided that he couldn’t say “very good”, because he doesn’t like to lie to me.  In homage to my father’s honesty, I titled this post ”10 Very Not Bad Things About Biglaw”.   I feel better about myself for being fair, but like my father, I don’t want to lie to you.  The truth is that the job isn’t all bad.  On the whole, however, I can’t really say that there’s much for me, personally, that is “very good”.  So for me, it’s on to the next.  For someone else, however, Biglaw may just be the parmesan-and egg-battered, homemade-sauce-coated, eggplant parmigiana of my father’s dreams.

How did it come to this?

First, let me say that I take full responsibility for my current state of discontent.  That said, I really wish my parents had let me in on the secret that that smart people do enter fields other than law and medicine.  “You should be a TV anchorwoman”, my grandmother once said to me.  I was about 7 at the time and in retrospect, that was the most enlightened suggestion I received prior to about five months ago.  In spite of grandma’s vision for my future, however, I pursued law with Napoleonic zeal.  After graduating college with a B.A. in political science — the official major of law school hopefuls — I rode off into the sunset with my resume trailing behind me.  Man, I dedicated all four years of college to building that resume!  It was like my baby.  In addition to private sector work, I interned in both the legislative and executive branches, earned awards and honors, traveled extensively — frankly, I can’t bear to waste any more of my life even describing it all.  Because the problem was that I just wanted the credentials and didn’t really enjoy any of it (except for the traveling).  I went through college AND law school with neither hobbies nor any clue as to who I was, what I valued, and what I (i.e. not my siblings, not my parents, not my friends) enjoyed doing.

More than a few have commented on my page, asking what I would have done differently and why it took me so long to realize that I am in the wrong profession.  With respect to the latter inquiry, my answer is simple: I never took the time to get to know myself.  More specifically, my ego and my drive prevented me from pursuing the things that I like doing (drawing, writing, smelling roses, etc.).  My mom, reeling from divorce during my formative years, raised me to believe that valuable women were strong, independent, power-players who, through intelligence and charisma, clawed their way up the corporate ladder (think Baby Boom, Working Girl, Who’s the Boss).   In addition, our family was afflicted with a more general bias towards lawyers and doctors.  I hated science, which left law.  Specifically, corporate law.  I am a corporate lawyer.  That was my choice.

I credit my parents — especially my mom — for my strength and independence.  What I would recommend to others, however, is to really examine your motivations for pursuing a career.  If you want to be a Biglaw associate because you want to be a power player, that’s OK (it’s nice to dream);  but if you want to be happy doing it, you should (among other things) love the law, be detail-oriented and organized, be able to keep a straight head while juggling multiple deadlines under intense pressure, have patience for minutiae and be physically able to see inconsistencies in small text or on screen.  And you should be and do all of these things even when you’re running on nothing but caffeine and trying not to focus on the gnawing fear that maybe your eyeballs really can shrivel up or maybe your best friend really has deleted your phone number, which you couldn’t really blame her for, since you’ve had to cancel on her about 5,000 times.

With respect to the former question — what I would have done differently — the answer is basically the same, but perhaps simpler.  I would not have spent so much time doing things that I don’t enjoy.  Not only would I have abstained from pursuing with such fervor Hollywood’s prepackaged power woman persona, but I simply would have noted the connection between those things that I do not enjoy and those things that I would not want to do every day for the rest of my life.  Finding your life’s work is, I think, an organic process.  I was like a closet pacifist who joined the army — shocking that things are not working out.

Thankfully, that is all in the past.  As for the future, it would seem that I have have to find some hobbies …