“There is no perfect job. There will be days where you’ll get tired of doing the same old thing, or be pissed at your boss for being unreasonable.”
“At this point, it’s more important to know what you do not want, than what you want.”
“Blue Ocean strategy!”
“There are no mistakes. All these opportunities for growth will eventually lead you to where you’re supposed to be.”

These are just some of the many advice that have been graciously given to me by college friends and law firm partners alike. This article has recently joined this roster. Professor of Law John Manning ’85 states that:

“Your tummy is your best advisor.” Students should do their research and arm themselves with the facts, Manning said, but ultimately, they would have to trust their guts, and know that if they make the wrong decision, they will be able to fix it later.

After having received multiple offers after a full month of ruthless job-hunting, I had the good problem of deciding which career opportunity to choose. I was already leaning towards a particular offer but there was just one thing holding me back: it’s not what most lawyers are expected to do after passing the bar.

But tonight, I’m shutting all these voices out.

This is it. I can feel it in my gut.

Whenever someone posts a seemingly trivial question in social media, at least one internet lurker is quick to think: that’s what Google is for.

But there are times when posting a question is not intended merely to get an answer. Sometimes the question is in itself a form of expression – an expression of interest over the subject matter, an expression of curiosity. It’s a public display of “Hey, has anyone else thought about this?”

So, no. Google is not the answer to everything. It’s possible that people are just looking for some good ol’ human connection, a sense of belonging an algorithm can’t provide.

Looking for a job could be exhausting, both physically and emotionally.

You hand in your resume. You come back for the interview. You sell yourself short by gradually lowering your ask. Do this a couple more times. You stress over the fact that they have not called back. And then you ponder, maybe I should just start my own soap business?

I’ve had my fair share of this kind of negativity recently. But every uncomfortable situation is a possible source of growth if you look hard enough! There are certain perks I get by looking for employment .

I get to talk to the experts.
By experts, I mean the people who have been in this industry far longer than me. Their time is precious. Most of them are billed by the HOUR. Yet they gave me the opportunity to meet with them, to deliver my pitch as to why I’m right for the position, and to casually ask for career advice. All for free.

Conversing with a person hones my speaking skills.
Public speaking is not my strongest suit. Being scheduled for an interview forces me to prepare and practice my answers to anticipated questions. I have no choice but to speak up and answer the best way I know how. When you’re thrown into a pool with sharks, you have no choice but to swim.

I am exposed to different types of lawyers.
At this moment, my career track is not yet dead set. But after talking to a handful of practitioners, I now have an idea of what not to become.

–

It must be said that this is my first time looking for a job. (I went straight to law school after getting my undergraduate degree.) The novelty of the experience could be the root of my optimism. Nevertheless, I believe that any source of discomfort should be viewed as an invitation for growth – whether it’s learning how to face it head on or learning how to live around it.

With a little nudge from our house help, I finally decided to fix my post-bar study table. A bulk of the review things are still there, but I’ll be giving away most of them soon. Pay it forward.

Random trinkets have found their way to the bin. Little frames, old notebook pads, friendship bracelets. When was the last time I cleared this table anyway? Until I’m finally able to embrace and practice Minimalism, I’d have to do occasional trip down memory lanes such as this to open up space for more seemingly relevant stuff.

It’s a little therapeutic actually, throwing things away. More than the emotional catharsis brought by cleaning, I get to see what things I considered worth of shelf space the last time I emptied my desk. I am amused by my method of evaluation: will I be able to use this soon is replaced by do I really want to remember this time in my life. I hoarded material things because it was my way of holding on to the memories.

The little tokens you throw out don’t become irrelevant. It’s the memories they represent that usually do.

Last week, I wanted to text my friend about a particular law firm she’s currently working for. She was my co-intern in the summer internship I had two years ago.

It took me a long time before I could formulate what message to send her. I wanted to ask her how she’s doing, what the culture of the firm is, and to casually inquire if I needed to submit particular documents for my application.

I didn’t want to look opportunistic. We had a good working relationship but it’s been a long time since we last conversed.

That’s when it dawned upon me: I didn’t have to send her just one text message. I could break it up to parts.

If you want to cultivate a relationship with someone, text messaging is probably not the best way to do it. But if the need arises, or that is the only reasonable means that this person, do not be pressured to put everything in one text message. You don’t have to compress your long time no see greeting with your current inquiry. Sending a series of messages just might do the trick.

The target release for the bar results was at 11:30 AM.

I was refreshing my Twitter feed every minute. #Bar2014. The news came in little trinkets. Big mistake.

Crowd gathers in front of the SC.
Bar chairman takes the podium.
18.82% passing rate.

That’s when I lost it. There’s no way I would’ve made the cut, with a passing rate 2 percentage points lower than the last year’s. I kept trying to load the results page but to no avail. So I did the next best thing:

I started to cry.

While I was busy with all this drama, my friend, who is currently in the US, unbeknownst to me, continued refreshing the page. She then messaged me: you passed.

I passed. I made it.

:)

Our goals in life are mainly classified into two: to gain pleasure or to avoid pain. Passing the bar squarely falls on the latter.

There are plenty of factors involved in this licensure examination that passing it doesn’t only require hard work but a dash of luck as well. Not to mention damn good handwriting.

This road to success is suddenly paved with painstaking uncertainties! Your motivation dies. You lose the drive to seek pleasure from it. The waiting game for the results becomes a countdown not to the Greatest Moment of Your Legal Career but denigrates to the day when you find out if you have to take it again.

After knowing that I passed, a wave of relief engulfed me. Thank goodness I didn’t have to go through with that again. Relief more than joy. The part about gaining pleasure, I wholeheartedly left that for my family and loved ones.

Numerous self-help books highlight the importance of loving yourself so that one can lead a happy life. It asserts that you have to embrace yourself first – the good, the bad, the ugly – before others follow suit.

But the idea is so abstract that sometimes we just take it at face value not knowing how this concept really works.

Today I discovered the connection.

Loving yourself is the antidote to all your deep-rooted insecurities.
Learning to let go of those little imperfections, not caring on what other people think, gradual appreciation of one’s quirks – all of these eradicates that voice inside our heads that tells us we’re not enough. Loving yourself means not being afraid of falling short of society’s expectations.

No insecurities means you treat other people better.
I’d like to think that no person is inherently bad. An adverse response to a situation is merely triggered by an unknown insecurity. If one is plagued with countless of insecurities, it’s easy to construe a mere inconvenience as an attack to one’s persona. Such attack is then countered with a negative reaction which, if not addressed, perpetuates the cycle of insecurity. Reducing these insecurities means you don’t dig up and over think any hassling situation thrown at you. You don’t think the world conspired against you for being so and so. You simply shrug it off and move on.

Treating other people better leads them to loving you.
This way, everybody wins!

Insecurities act as a barrier to our connection with other people. It is anchored on a profound level of fear (of being irrelevant, not good enough). This idea deserves its own blog space altogether.

—

This post is brought to you by the happy hormones I got after a good gym session. And also partly by Brené Brown.

“There is no one giant step that does it. It’s a lot of little steps.”

Breaking a seemingly insurmountable task down to little steps removes the overwhelming sense of what’s laid out before you.

You see the goal, and you trace it back the best way you can. In concrete, actionable steps. One foot after the other. Goodbye, Armor of Overwhelm!

Additional bonus: These small steps will inspire you to keep going. You see the dots leading to a certain path and you know that if you continue to do these little increments, you will be able to reach the grand goal you were too overwhelmed to consider pursuing.

Bonus #2: In the event that you are again engulfed by paralysis (because let’s face it, certain physiological triggers are hard to shake off), the steps you wrote down will act as a guide, a productivity compass. The risk of getting stuck is reduced to a minimum.

The first step is knowing that it’s made up of a lot of little steps.

Should I start with The Name of the Rose or finish House of Cards S3?

Rule of thumb: Always choose reading when there is natural light. Never underestimate the power of the sun in making the paper crisper, the characters bolder, the ideas clearer compared to seeing it all under a night lamp.

Absorb and be absorbed.

Snub your destiny. I have taught myself to resist running to keep on schedule. This may seem a very small piece of advice, but it registered. In refusing to run to catch trains, I have felt the true value of elegance and aesthetics in behavior, a sense of being in control of my time, my schedule, and my life. Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.

You stand above the rat race and the pecking order, not outside of it, if you do so by choice.

–Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

What an unexpected way to end your essay, Mr. Taleb.

Granted the above mentioned quote is far from what the entire book is about, it’s quite a relief to know that all his strong criticism and snarky comments against bank executives and social scientists is coming from a place of consideration, not just arrogance.

Taleb’s grand mission in exposing the “great intellectual fraud” is rooted on a deeper level of concern for how people’s actions are affected by the way we process information.

I welcome the change in perspective. But man, what a complex way to view the world. (If David Foster Wallace opened our eyes to the existence of water, Taleb sought to spread awareness of both the water and the fishbowl!)

Looking forward to reading it again. I hope by then I have mustered enough patience to read through the technical presentations of his epistemological brilliance.