Darling Hill

Ever pick up a book or magazine and discover a page glaring back at you, as if you were meant to find and read the words on that page? That happened to me last night, as I picked up Sarah Ban Breathnach's, Simple Abundance--a copy that I've had on my shelf for years.

Coincidentally, the page I opened to "Job, Career, or Calling?" speaks of the struggle we lawyers, especially women lawyers and lawyer moms, come to know too well in the profession (though the author writes generally about the struggle). She writes, "There is a significant difference between a job, a career, and a calling. Jobs are what we do to keep, bodies, souls, and families together.... A career can be a calling, but not necessarily."

She suggests that "Sometimes careers resemble long-standing marriages in which passion is exchanged for comfort, security, and predictability in an uncertain world." The author claims
"that every day we don't strive to live authentically we do pay a price, with compounded interest," and that each of us when we're ready can find the path of fulfillment -- "we're all chosen; most of us just forget to rsvp."

For some, the law is a job. Others it is a career. And still for others, it is a calling. We've been conditioned to believe that just because we went to law school, and maybe accumulated massive debt for that experience, that we owe it to ourselves to stick with the law, at all costs. Obviously, lawyers need to earn a living, if only to pay back those student loans, but it is possible to live authentically, getting up each day to "go to work" (even if that's in bunny slippers from your kitchen table) and satisfying your inner needs and goals.

The secret just may lie in believing that you owe it to yourself to find and create fulfillment. Other lawyers have found gratifying paths and so can you. Really.

Quoting novelist Mary Morris, Sarah Ban Breathnach closes Job, Career, or Calling, with this inspiration:

Pursuing what you want to do and achieving your goal is not like finding the burning bush or discovering a gold mind. There are usually no epiphanies, no sudden reversals of fortune. Fulfillment comes in fits and starts.... Fulfillment comes in many guises, and it can come to us in our lives at any time.... But only we can make sure we will be fulfilled. If we feel empty, no amount of water can fill our well. It has to come from within, from the underground springs and streams."

Pursuing your dreams, within or alongside the law and even in baby steps, is something that can start today.