|
Law in Contemporary Society
|
|
I removed the other drafts of this and other essays. We are concentrating here on one text.He stood there in his navy blue, and well-tailored suit. A carefully folded white silk handkerchief peaked from his breast pocket and a slightly loosened tie hung from his neck. "I just won my case today." "Oh, good for you." I mumbled through a mouth full of food, while staring intently at my plate. I hoped that if I concentrated on my food long enough he would get the hint. " You know, you can't trust some women; but the judge saw that. Can you believe she knew where all my stuff was? She knew about how much my apartment is worth, my cls 63, even my watches! Who knows that, but a gold digger?... Now listen, I'm not going to bother you, but I just felt happy about this case, and when I feel happy I like to talk to people" I noticed his abandoned table, one place setting, one empty glass. "Did you know man was only born with two fears?.... Fear of falling and fear of sound. It's cuz when we were first in this world it was always dark, so we had heightened hearing. Sound told us if there was danger, and falling, well falling is falling... Anyways, my point is that all of our other fears are learned. Fear only holds you back from living and makes you weak. I could go up to a tiger, if a tiger were right there. I could go up to a tiger and look him in the eyes and pet him, and if i show no fear, he'd let me. But, the minute I show fear, he'd bite my fucking leg off. ... One time this asshole put a gun to my head, you see I had to put his brother in his place, back in the day, right up there on Lenox ... Anyway, his brother ran to this giant, a real big guy, and he came to settle stuff. So he comes, and he puts a gun to my head, and instead of shaking and crying, you know what i did? ...I said, 'Well Tyrone, I guess you're just gonna have to shoot me because your brother was an asshole who got what he deserved.' Do you know what this Goliath did?! He didn't shoot me that's what, but you better believe, if I let him see my fear, that would have been it." He suddenly stopped talking. He stared at me and there was a lonely desperation in his eyes. Then, as if awaken from a dream too soon, he rubbed his eyes with frustration, and walked away. I was afraid. Not for my safety but a deeper fear. I don't want to be a lawyer held back by fear. What is it to be a lawyer not held back by fear? It is to recognize that fear, analyze it and come up with a plan to use the roots of that fear as motivation. I am afraid of failure. Failure to me means not being successful, i.e., not having control and fulfillment. I have come to the realization that I need to be my own boss. I need to create something that is my own. I do not want to be beholden to anyone for the entirety of my life. To start something that is my own, I need to be able to have capital. To do this, I plan to work in a firm and save as much money as I can for five years maximum. After five years I'll leave, no matter what. I won't buy the bigger apartment, the nice car or the designer clothing because those things won't abate my fear. Only having as much control over my life as possible will. During this 5 year period, I will try and decide what will fulfill me. I know this will be the most challenging aspect for me because I can get swept up in the crowd. However, after 5 years I will get a job working for a company or non profit that specializes in the field that I am interested in and I will hone a specialty and gather a network. I will stay at this job for 2 years, after which I will leave and start my own company or non-profit that fills a gap. I know that this will be the single most terrifying and fulfilling step in life I can take. At this point I will be my own boss and as long as I don't rely too heavily on a few donors or clients, I can make sure that I am my own captain. I'm not sure why the story of the stranger who won his case has remained part of the essay rather than being discarded as part of the prologue. Having left yourself only one paragraph in which to accomplish everything else, you are necessarily somewhat compressed. You haven't shown that the best way to start having a practice is not to have one, as though the savings from salary were a better form of capital than a network providing clients. You have proposed that after two years more of school you will be ready to work for five years to save some money to work for two years more at a job after which you might be ready to have a practice in which you will perhaps not continue to feel afraid of failure. Might it not be a better idea to confront the fear of failure directly, as a matter of psychotherapy, and spend the next decade instead doing what you would enjoy and what would profit society? You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" character on the next two lines:
|
|
