The Pursuit of Happiness

Happiness is a subject that has been of much interest as of late. The last six months or so has seen me doing all sorts of strange things in pursuit of what I thought might make me happy. I think there are many parts to being a happy person, and I’m going to ruminate on them for a couple of posts.

The first part of this musing will focus on job happiness. I figured out that I have to have a job to support my bad habits like buying guns and playing golf. If I have to, I might as well do something I enjoy. But what might that be? Though various misadventures, I ended up a lawyer.

What about being a lawyer could make me happy? I think a lot of us lawyers get into it wanting to be the knights in shining armor. Along the way, most of us get seduced by the money aspect. I’m just as guilty as all the rest.

I found out that money wasn’t making me happy. The pursuit of a decent wage was killing me. I figured that less money with less stress and headache was well-worth the cost.

I thought my unhappiness was due to the practice of law. If I got out of it, maybe that would help things. So what to do?

To begin with, I quit my job with an insurance company, as in -house counsel. I realized they were going to burn me out, should I stay with them. For more information, see my second-ever post about the personal injury racket here.

There wasn’t much job satisfaction, basically.

I had enough of the practice of law, or so I thought. So I went to work for a real estate company. Those of you out there who denigrate lawyers for being scummy really need to hang out with salesmen for awhile. No offense, but they make the worst trial lawyer look like a saint in comparison. While there are honorable salespeople, there are plenty of bad ones. I was fortunate enough to work with some pretty decent people, but I also had to deal with some of less than sterling ethics from other offices than mine. .

Plus, the job was not exactly making me happy. I went into it thinking I would be able to spend more time with my family, and hopefully make more money. I was wrong on the first count, at least. The bottom line was that I didn’t think I was doing the world any good selling dirt.

The opportunity came up to get back into the practice of law. I jumped at it. In doing so, I found out a couple of things.

First, the practice of law is a lot more rewarding if you’re actually doing some good for the average person. Helping a big insurance company is not a great way to feel altruistic. Maybe I’m delusional, but I went into this lawyer gig thinking that I could have a positive effect on the world. I would be able to help my fellow man. Not doing that was creating a lot of dissonance in my existence.

Second, the practice of law is much better when you are your own boss. You can call your own shots. I was very happy to tell a potential client to kiss off the other day. Not that I didn’t need his money. It’s just that I realized hew as a scumbag, and I didn’t want to represent him. I told him to find another lawyer. That was a great feeling. I never had that sort of freedom before. I was stuck with whatever igmo the insurance company sent me. When I worked for other lawyers, I had to take their clients over because I had no other choice. I had to bill hours to justify my existence, and deal with the hand I was dealt. It’s a bit different nowadays.

Third, it’s tough being your own boss. There’s a lot of things you have to deal with that were not there before. Payroll, accounting, collectibles and receivables, etc. This is a pain. Fortunately, computers have made it to where a person really can run a one-person shop.

Being a lawyer is the cross I bear. Because of training and licensing and whatnot, I am in a unique position to be a force for good in the world. It strikes me that I have an obligation to do just that: use my skills as a lawyer and try to do some good. It also occurs to me that this is what God intended for me to do. Why else would I have ended up in this position, with these skills and training? So how can I turn my back on it?

The short answer is that I can’t. I have been adrift without much of a purpose for a long time now. On the job aspect, I think I have finally found a niche that I fit in. I’m here to try and do some good for the average person out there. There is a measure of happiness in knowing that.

Bottom line: use what talents God gave you to make your living. I think He’s got a purpose in mind for all of us.

Next time, I’ll talk about other things which I think are necessary to making one happy.