Out in the Real World
OLA is no walk in the park. A few months ago Reader’s Digest featured the answers to 20 most important questions in life. One of the questions went: "Should you love your job?". The answer RD gave was no, give it importance, value it, be thankful you have one, but for the love of God don’t love it. Love is too precious a commitment to give to work. You love people — your family, friends, significant others. Maybe you even love your very loyal pets. But your job? It’s something you do and not who you are. What measures you as a person maybe is how you conduct yourself (properly, with integrity) in the performance of your work. But again, it is not an accurate measure of who you are.
The problem with being a lawyer is that your clients don’t know any better and they, most often than not, put their full trust and confidence in you. You have to constantly remind yourself, this is just my job, come to think of it, this isn’t even my problem. I am being retained to worry about other people’s problems. But at the end of the day those worries are still not my own, they’re someone else’s, so it shouldn’t rob me of a good night’s sleep, or time for my friends, or time for other interests.
Ack. I have yet to figure out where to place myself in all this.
The other day I was talking to this guy who stabbed my client for a possible settlement. My client really doesn’t want to press charges, he just wants to recover the money he spent on hospital bills, transportation and forgone wages (he was absent for 5 days). The stabber is jobless, I was actually supposed to meet him earlier but he didn’t show because he fell asleep when we were supposed to meet. In the kindest terms let me just say he struck me as…laidback. I wanted to shake him by the shoulders and yell "GET A JOB! DON"T RELY ON YOUR WIFE AND YOUR SISTER FOR SUPPORT!" The stabbing incident happend last year pa and this guy knew the client just wanted his money back, but did he save up for it? NOOOOOOO!!! And why do I care pa ba? There’s a warrant of arrest issued for him already. But why do I care?!!! To the malcontent, God bless you.
Ack. I have to stop spending so much time with OLA stuff.
"Love the discipline you know and let it support you. Entrust everything willingly to the gods, and then make your way through life–no one’s master and no one’s slave." — Marcus Aurelius
August 3rd, 2006 at 6:29 pm
i still go for loving your work.
i miss hanging out with you.
how can you value something you don’t love? besides, it’s not your clients you have to love, it’s the work itself. it’s the thought of being able to do something for someone and that whatever it is that you do affects the lives of others. it kinda makes you feel important, di ba?
sure it doesn’t define who you are, but it’s still a part of you. yun lang
August 4th, 2006 at 10:22 am
you just encapsulated in not so many words what i’ve been thinking about for the past 2 months i’ve been in OLA. i thought i was either gonna go insane, or i’d eventually give up and just do OLA for the sake of passing law school.
at this point i am still trying to distance myself away from the problems of clients. there is no room for that much empathy when it is my own sanity on the line. or is there? i wish there is an easier way to deal with it.
August 7th, 2006 at 12:44 am
CJ, I miss hanging out with you too. But I’m glad we kinda made up today.
Hay nako, ang dali ko kasi maawa. Pfft.
Iya, I say, go go go!!! Fight fight fight!!! Basta think positive na lang and hope for the best. Let’s not lose sleep over these damn cases na ha…eyebags are never flattering.
August 8th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
i’m glad too
although what i had in mind wasn’t exactly trudging the muddy outer region and forests of antipolo. hehe :))