How To React To Being One Year Removed From Law School

It was exactly a year ago today (to the minute) that I sent off an email to an administrator at my law school stating that I was resigning from law school.  It was such a freeing moment.  I think the closest experience I have had that rivals the relief I felt in sending that email was when I was finished with my mission for my church.  I had spent two years, 24/7 almost exclusively thinking about sharing what I believed and helping those I met.  I felt a burden leave my shoulders when my mission was officially over.  There was a similar feeling when I finally committed to ending my law school journey.  It was the hardest and scariest decision of my life, but I've come out on top.

I've known for a few weeks that this anniversary was coming, and it kind of frightened me, to be honest.  I wondered if I'd be able to demonstrate through progress and growth over the past year to my readers and friends that quitting law school was totally worth it--that I was one of those people who quit, but went on to do great things.

But now that I'm reflecting on everything I've been through, I don't really care what my readers think about my decision.  (I do wonder though, about the opinions of my former classmates.  I wonder sometimes if they feel like I'm just that guy who quit because he was lazy, etc.  I wonder if I make them feel better about their ability to stick it out?  Alas, as Danie said, they'll talk, but then they'll just forget.)

The important thing about my decision?  I know I made the right one.  While I don't have a fantastically high-paying job that incurs as much respect as being a lawyer may, I am so much happier.  My life feels stable enough for me to just focus on progressing and getting better at it all.  Have all my problems gone away?  Nope.  Am I still pretty deep in debt?  Yep.  But I'm happy with my present state.  I have a job that lets me get the variety I crave.  I have the promise of being able to try various things that I've never done before.  I get to work from home (a.k.a. anywhere with Internet)!  I love my bosses.  I really like where I live and feel like it suits me pretty well.  I'm not happy that there are people who find themselves miserable in law school and find their way here, but I am very happy that through this blog I've been able to help people in various ways.  I think a lot of people probably come here wanting something more from me, but I'm just happy if a couple of you leave here satisfied that you got a bit of help.  Things are pretty darn good.

The other day, I had a friend who was facing a possible conflict with his work and he asked me to look over his contract.  It was fun realizing that, while I couldn't actually state anything with the authority of a true barrister, I could still help him to know what he should talk to lawyers and interested parties about.  I was reminded of some of the thrills I had in figuring the law out.  However, it also reminded me that I didn't have to write a boring, rigid brief about what he and I talked about.  I didn't have to deal with the politics of a firm.  I didn't have the pressure of needing to get it all correct to avoid losing.  I miss some things about learning the law, but I don't miss a lot of the other stuff that surrounded it.

Truly, I'm happy I quit.  I guess that's the best thing I could have hoped to be saying at my one year anniversary of my decision to drop out of law school.