"I really can’t see the end getting any closer, but I’ll probably still be the man when everything is over." -Drake
Yes, perhaps corny to quote Drake, but it captures how I feel (or would like to feel) right now.
As per the title of the post, this is the first day of a commitment to write daily for a full year. We'll have to see how it goes. While I have false-started many a time when it comes to my writing, I have found recent success in another streak that reached its midpoint today: long distance running. On September 28th (my brother's birthday) I began running daily with the intention to do so for a year. As I type I have completed day 183 and am looking forward to day 184 tomorrow. If this running commitment is any indication of my ability to be disciplined, then it seems as if I may be able to keep up the writing this time. We'll see...
The purpose of this first post is to pretty much write freely. I love to write, but often find that I don't make time for it during the day. It's so easy to find mundane stuff to fill 10-15 minutes and all of a sudden you look up and the day is gone and you haven't really accomplished anything of note. Or anything at all sometimes.
So what's on my mind right now? The thoughts bounce back and forth between my students/classroom and my law school applications, which are currently being reviewed at all 5 schools to which I have applied. As there are two months left in school and I feel as though I have certain amount of control over what can happen in my classroom between now and the end of the year, I will focus on the law school admissions process. Today I write to ease my anxieties over the very little control that I have in regard to my law school fate.
I have applied to five of the most selective law schools in country with an expectation that I will get into one of them. Though I believe that I am a strong applicant, the numbers are not in my favor: across the board schools are reporting significant increases in the number of applications that they are receiving. Though I refrain from breathing life into these words, there is a very real possibility that I will not get into any of the 5 law schools to which I have applied. I have received very few rejections in my life and this would certainly be the most significant, but it is important for me to embrace this as a potential reality and recognize that in such a result lies an opportunity for growth. The growth to which I refer is truly growth in its grandest form, for there are seldom times that we are able to be as reflective as when we have failed. Success is basked in, but not very often do we learn the lessons of success from succeeding. On the contrary, it seems, the value of success is gained and understood through the battles and the failures leading up to it. Perhaps that's completely false and it is something that people say to help them feel better. But if you really do believe it, what's to say that it isn't true, at least for you?
I suppose that the above is to demonstrate to myself--in written form--that there is a great deal of value to this window of time in which I am currently living. I am limbo as I sit between a precisely-determined near future and one that is much more nebulous. But going back to beliefs, in the deepest part of who I am I believe that I will learn and grow more not from a letter of acceptance from one of these fine institutions, but rather from rejections across the board. As such I have written this post for two reasons, or it might be better to say two different potential outcomes: 1) to help me remember, in my despair from rejection, that there is a very real opportunity for me to grow and become more like the person I want to be (more on that later, I'm sure). 2) to help me remember, even as I bask in the rays of success emanating from acceptance to law school that the journey to this point has offered many valuable lessons which I should not overlook but rather do my very best to try and internalize to help me get closer to being the person I want to be. In either case, the biggest takeaway is somewhat related to the quote of the day from Aubrey Graham aka Drake, which to me is a reminder that however this entire process works out, I will be more than fine and still have the opportunity to live my life to the fullest.
CJHIII
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