The Practice of Law: Your Job, Your Career, or Your Calling?

After seven years as a hospice volunteer and four years as an integral coach to the legal community, I have witnessed tremendous suffering - remarkably, more among those “living” in our legal communities than those dying in our public hospitals. What is it about our work that brings about such outcomes?

In 2002, a middle-aged partner of a prominent San Francisco law firm was exiting the UCSF Cancer Center after a quarterly checkup. It had been 10 years since his original prognosis when he was told that he might only have two years left to live. As he reached the street door of the center, which also gave access to the adjacent hospital, he ran into a founding partner of his firm, a man 15 years his senior whose cancer was metastatic and highly advanced. They had seen one another at the office that morning, but this would be the last time that they would meet. The senior partner died three days later. The surviving partner then vowed that his last day in life would not be in the office, unless his work became his calling.

It is said that one’s work is either a job, a career, or a calling. A job is something that you do for money and little more. A career is a ladder that you climb for status, power, and money. It is externally referenced, and success is based upon meeting the expectations of others, not your own self-fulfillment. A calling may include status, power, or money, but it is self-referencing. It is a professional life lived in congruence with your passions.

Passions are rarely confined to the professional domain. If your professional life is your calling, it is because you are in pursuit of your life’s purpose, which extends well beyond your work existence. Consider Martin Luther King. Do you think he ever considered his work as a “job?” Were his sacrifices, as a civil rights leader, part of a “career?” Is there any doubt that his work as a preacher, as a civil rights leader, as a community member were not coherently joined, sustained, and invigorated by his “calling” to change racial relations in this country, once and for all?

The example of King shines a light on what is at the heart of a fulfilled life - your relationship to your own mortality. You know that your death is inevitable and that your life span is decreasing continuously. You know that your life expectancy is uncertain and that death will come whether or not you are prepared. You also know that when death comes all of the status, power, and money that you have accumulated cannot help you. So what really matters? What do you believe you are here to do? What is your purpose? What gives your life meaning?

One of the difficulties of our modern life and upbringing is that we rarely are invited to consider these fundamental issues. As you proceed through primary and secondary school, acquiring skills and making a record adequate to allow you to compete for space in a university of your choice, little time is given over to introspection. Perhaps in college you are able to study philosophy or psychology, but then the quest for graduate school entry leaves little room for actual contemplation of the great ideas of human existence offered in your undergraduate years. In law school, the functional equivalent of boot camp for lawyers, there is the constant pressure and competition for top grades and then the anticipation of, and preparation for, the dreaded bar exam, all serving as a constant source of distraction. Having run that tortuous gauntlet, you may have been offered a job - not necessarily the one you sought, but a job nonetheless. When, in that hectic period, do most people make the time to inquire into life’s meaning?

But, ask yourself now: How do you approach this finite existence called “life?” Is it a container to be filled? Or is it, by the nature of its inevitable closure, a gift to be savored? If the former, you will find plenty to keep you busy. You will find a mate, procreate, raise your progeny, acquire things, pursue status, compete, and conquer. If the latter, you will find yourself slowing down and heightening your awareness of all that is around you. You will observe life in all its particulars, opening up your awareness to all that it offers, expanding your curiosity of what more you want to experience, learn, explore, and discover. You will build and sustain meaningful relationships.

Imagine that you are 95 years old. Your life has gone exactly as you had wished. You are fulfilled, happy, and at peace. As you look back from that place, imagine what your life would have to have been to deliver you there. How important were your contributions to your community? How significant were your relationships with family and friends? Did you leave time to follow your passions? If so, what were they? Did they include travel, music, art, further education, public service, or charitable works? Is the life that you are leading now likely to take you to that place of fulfillment, happiness, and peace? If not, why not, and what are you going to do about it?

Recognize that the answer lies in pursuing a path. Outcomes flow from the journey itself, not from reaching the destination. Awareness is fundamental. Can’t you find a precious few moments each day for quiet introspection? It may be meditation, a yoga practice, prayer, or playing music. The object is to create space for silence, to allow you to drop deeper into yourself, to allow the myriad of thoughts racing through your mind to be observed but not acted upon. They are, after all, only thoughts. As you learn to create space in your mind you will find that your awareness grows. With your growing awareness you can open your curiosity and find new perspectives that shift your beliefs and judgments about how life should be. You become aware of your inherent goodness and generosity. You learn the significance of human relationships.

From this awareness, you acquire an initial inkling of what your purpose in life might be. It doesn’t come all at once. As you proceed further down the path of awareness, your purpose evolves and becomes more elaborate.

As your purpose takes shape, something extraordinary happens. You find an ability to identify goals and set priorities which support your purpose. Other to-dos, largely creatures of your habitual thinking embedded from your culture and upbringing, can fall by the wayside, since they are not truly yours.

As you pursue your goals by following your priorities, you find relationships that sustain and nurture you. Your life becomes balanced because there is an alignment between who you are and what you do. You will find yourself in the company of those who naturally support you because you are following your passions and are generous, open, and forthcoming. This all takes time. It doesn’t happen at once. In fact, it can’t, because you are continuously evolving, discovering, and modifying your life to fit the ever-changing circumstances of the world in which you live. But this time is neither futile nor frustrating, because you are pursuing your path and not that of someone else.

So how does all of this fit into where you find yourself now? First, you cannot begin to consider what to change until you know where you might be going. Take time to be with yourself. That time exists in your life, right now - even if you think other wise. As you begin to pay attention to the subject of purpose, you will find it beginning to emerge from what you are reading, or listening to, from conversation, and from inspiration.

Second, what parts of your current life support what you anticipate your purpose might be? Observe yourself, keep a journal. Try to expand those elements of what you do to see if more is truly better. Third, study your relationships. Spend time with people who inspire, support, and nurture you. Avoid those who are toxic to you. You know who they are. Fourth, take care of your body. Take up a slow movement practice such as yoga or Qi Gong to learn where and how you carry stress in your body so that you may find ways to discharge it. It will make for better health and mental clarity. Fifth, listen - truly listen - to others. While giving others the gift of your attention, you allow them to go deeper into their own thoughts and allow yourself to become acquainted with the sources of your reactions. You will learn that there are minds that operate quite differently from your own. You will create a capacity for understanding those differences and develop tools for reconciling them, always of help in effective lawyering.

All along you are building capacity to attain that fulfilled, happy, peaceful life you seek. You will make choices that feed your passions. You will build relationships that nurture you as you increase your capacity to nurture others. You will bring your life into balance. And, if you find that your current work is not allowing you to follow your path, you may elect to change your workplace, your specialty, or even your career. Remember, if it isn’t your “calling” then it’ s just work. You deserve much more, as does the world from you.