Is the "pursue your dreams" thing a little overblown?

[furt]

@The_Bith_Shuffle

I think that people (especially white people) tend to overemphasize the idea that you should “follow your dreams.”

I’m curious as to why you added “especially white people.”

I’m white, but I’ve spent most of my adult life working with kids and young people, a many of them minorities. IME, the phenomenon you speak of is far, FAR more common, and far more damaging, among the poor (who are disproportionately minority). Middle-class kids may give up on their real dreams a bit too quickly, but they have “secondary dreams” that they pursue. Poorer kids are taught to dream big, when they might be better off with more humble goals.

For example, my (white) nephew’s dream of all dreams is to work on Mythbusters. But he also understands that that is very unlikely to happen, and so he is sensibly pursuing a career that will enable to to at least some of the things he likes to do – and so he is studying hard in school and majoring in engineering. It may be that when he is 45 he’ll conclude he should have gone for the TV thing harder … but he’ll probably have a solid, reasonably satisfying career to content himself with. His younger brother dreams of being a shooting guard or a concert violinist … but also knows that he needs a backup plan, and so also dreams of being a historian or writer.

In contrast, walk into any inner-city high school and talk to a dozen poor black high school freshman about their dreams, and you’ll have nine of them tell you they’re gonna be NBA stars or rappers. When you point out that he’s 5’2" and can’t get off the bench for his high school JV team, and thus probably needs a backup plan, he’ll blow you off. I’ve had multiple kids tell me that they didn’t need to do well in school because they’d be getting a scholarship to college. None of them were especially athletic.

The causes of this are another issue (and certainly multiple), but IME the leaders in inner-city communities are very conversant with “reach for the stars” rhetoric, and less inclined to steer kids toward more realistic goals.

[Malthus]

@Maeglin

While this is no doubt true, I would venture this mindset applies equally well even to more (or less) lucrative fields. If I had a dollar for every time I heard:

1. I didn’t go to law school to review pointless and redundant documents. I’m an attorney, dammit!

2. I didn’t get my MBA to do templates. I do strategy, dammit!

3. I’m not getting my PhD to grade horrible undergraduate quizzes, I’m a scholar, dammit!

The arts, law, business, whatever is full of people who simply do not want to do their time. I’ve worked with all of these people before in my various walks of life. A combination of a sense of entitlement and ignorance of what actual work entails cuts across every discipline I have ever seen. I have had the misfortune to spend time with cohorts of newly-minted MBAs, whose peculiar blend of entitlement and arrogance is equal to any starving artist’s.

Some of the people wise up, other wash out, and further some get lucky and survive on the patronage of others.

I strongly disagree that it is as prevelant in the law field, which is where I work now, and have for the last decade.

The reason is quite simple: by the time one is actually accepted into an apprenticeship position (here in Canada known as “articling”), the harsh reality of the necessity do “do one’s time” is well driven home to you. Those who are unwilling or unable to do it have already as it were been weeded out, since surviving law school requires a considerable amount of doing “one’s time”.

Which isn’t to say that newly minted lawyers don’t have senses of entitlement, but it certainly does not manifest itself in that manner. On the contrary. Low level lawyers are likely rather to take a perverse and exaggerated pride in sheer quanity of busy-work, boasting of all-nighters and missed weekends.

The difference between law and the arts is that the latter in general lacks the sort of structure of a law career. This lack of structure is both a benefit (in that it allows for greater freedom) and a drawback (in that there is greater difficulty and confusion in starting out). What it also means is that there is no formal barriers to entry of vetting process, so anyone who wants can claim the (seemingly) high status ‘cool factor’ of claiming to be an “artist” without actually doing any business as one; it is actually illegal in most jurisdictions to hold oneself out to be a lawyer without having gone through the formal process.

That, combined with the inherent subjectivity of what constitutes “art”, leads to an aggrivated sense of entitlement acting itself out in a different manner - it is much more likely to take the form of wanting the status of ‘artist’ without the hard grindwork required to actually do business as one (and indeed many ‘artists’ i have known would have insisted that being an artist is fundamentally a state of mind and doing business isn’t required to consider oneself one - few lawyers make that sort of claim for the practice of law!).

[Maeglin]

@Malthus

I strongly disagree that it is as prevelant in the law field, which is where I work now, and have for the last decade.

I take your point and acknowledge your greater experience.

Years ago I thought I would investigate being an attorney, so I spent nearly two years as a paralegal at two heavy hitting law firms in NYC. I would just venture that what your junior attorneys would say to you (or each other) and what they would say in front of staff might be quite different. They definitely did compete for who could process the most busywork, but this always struck me as just another way for people conditioned to be highly competitive to keep score.

How many of them really felt was another matter entirely. Everyone knows that working at a big 50 firm is not a picnic. But all of these people were wined and dined as summer associates, and sure, they worked hard, but were given largely substantive work to keep them interested in the firm. Once they got there, it was another matter. Even though they typically did know what they were getting into, many of the attorneys complained bitterly anyway and were certain that they deserved better. For a 25 year old making just south of $150k per year, this struck me as slightly perverse. The job probably would not pay so well if it were more fun.

That, combined with the inherent subjectivity of what constitutes “art”, leads to an aggrivated sense of entitlement acting itself out in a different manner - it is much more likely to take the form of wanting the status of ‘artist’ without the hard grindwork required to actually do business as one (and indeed many ‘artists’ i have known would have insisted that being an artist is fundamentally a state of mind and doing business isn’t required to consider oneself one - few lawyers make that sort of claim for the practice of law!).

I certainly agree with all of this, save that I do not think that being an artist carries all that much cachet, at least around here. Once upon a time, being a flavor of artist was subject to the professionalization and regulation of your particular guild, so the comparison with the profession of lawyer would probably have been more apt. The breakdown of the “profession” of the arts, for good and for ill, just opened the door for this kind of ambiguity.

[Malthus]

@Maeglin

I take your point and acknowledge your greater experience.

Years ago I thought I would investigate being an attorney, so I spent nearly two years as a paralegal at two heavy hitting law firms in NYC. I would just venture that what your junior attorneys would say to you (or each other) and what they would say in front of staff might be quite different. They definitely did compete for who could process the most busywork, but this always struck me as just another way for people conditioned to be highly competitive to keep score.

How many of them really felt was another matter entirely. Everyone knows that working at a big 50 firm is not a picnic. But all of these people were wined and dined as summer associates, and sure, they worked hard, but were given largely substantive work to keep them interested in the firm. Once they got there, it was another matter. Even though they typically did know what they were getting into, many of the attorneys complained bitterly anyway and were certain that they deserved better. For a 25 year old making just south of $150k per year, this struck me as slightly perverse. The job probably would not pay so well if it were more fun.

There is no doubt some truth in that; there is plenty of bitching and moaning about the cruel fate of working in law; I am guilty of some of that myself, sometimes - because it is quite stressful. The pay is of course part of the answer to that, as there are plenty of jobs just as stressful and less intellectually rewarding that pay a lot less!

Though I do think that lawyering can be a lot of fun, as it poses enormous challenges. It is “fun” in the way I would imagine something like rock climbing is fun - only the challenge is intellectual and not physical.

Thing is, as you learn the ropes of lawyering, much of that stress comes from not knowing where your next billable hour is comming from. So having a lot of boring document review to do, so long as someone is willing to pay for you to do it, can actually be welcome. Of course it isn’t as much fun, but it can fill the times between fun work, as it were.

I certainly agree with all of this, save that I do not think that being an artist carries all that much cachet, at least around here. Once upon a time, being a flavor of artist was subject to the professionalization and regulation of your particular guild, so the comparison with the profession of lawyer would probably have been more apt. The breakdown of the “profession” of the arts, for good and for ill, just opened the door for this kind of ambiguity.

It carries some arguable cachet - certainly more than “I dunno what , really - living with the 'rents and figuring my shit out”, which is in many cases the less embellished answer to the question ‘what do you do?’.

To my mind at least there is absolutely nothing wrong with a period of confusion in early adulthood - aside from a very few focused people who always knew what they wanted, it seems to be more or less the default position for most in our society. Even into later adulthood for some. For me, it was working at various different lifestyles - I was a student academic, then a junior sculptor, then backpacked around the world for some months, all looking for what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be - finally I decided I wanted to do something intellectually challenging and which paid enough for me to, finally, be able to support others rather than be supported myself, family-wise. For me, the answer was lawyering, since in Canada at least at the time the start-up costs were small (our law school fees were trivial compared to those in the US) and it was a career open to those who did well writing standardized tests (the LSAT). Certainly not the answer for everyone, I would stress!

The problem as I see it is what happened to many of my friends. For lack of a better term, they got stuck in a rut, pursuing a lifestyle - successful artist - to which they were not suited – not because they lacked artistic talent, but because they lacked the aptitude for the sort of grindwork that success in that field requires. To me at least this seemed a bit of a tragedy, as it leads to a life of prolonged dependence on either other people or joe-jobs, which as one ages becomes less and less satisfying - or at least, so it would seem to me.

To my mind the issue is this: knowing what your dreams truly are (something that, for us not-super-focused types, changes all the time) and having some appreciation of one’s own ability to achieve them, in light of the actual efforts one must make to do so and one’s objective abilities.

[Angel_of_the_Lord]

Yes. Yes it is. Because, usually, “pursue your dreams” is code for “do what we think is awesome.”

I have dreams. I want to live somewhere near an ocean or large, preferably in a small town, and I want to work at somewhere low-stress, like a store. Maybe I could own it, maybe not. I want low-stress. I want a low cost of living. I want to be able to write on the side, and I want to pretty much be away from a lot of things.

The problem is–and this is going to sound arrogant–is that I’m really, really damn smart. National Merit Scholar, won writing awards in high school, AP Classes, OMG smart. And so, growing up–and even now–I have had no shortage of people who’ve been wanting to tell me what, exactly, I should be doing with my life. Be a doctor, be a journalist, be a lawyer, do technical writing, be a famous novelist, go into finance, be a scientist–blah blah blah blah blah.

I used to want to do this in the city, too–but then I realized that the city is expensive and full of things and fashion and distraction and, while those things are fun–especially the cultural events–they make it a lot harder to live simply, which is what I want to do. The thing is, explaining to someone that, yeah, I pretty much want to do something simple, and be brilliant on my own, and be away from the crowd and kind of isolated, leads to “but you’re so smart.”

I’m smart, but I have very little traditional ambition. If I’d realized this a hell of a lot sooner, I’d probably be happier.

[Voyager]

@Maeglin

This is a distortion, intentional or otherwise, of what I am saying.

I refer to the administrative burden not placed on professors but on grad students, hence the “I’m not getting my PhD to grade quizzes” is in the present tense. Almost every grad student expects to teach, but the volume and actual time commitment surprises many people and they burn out quickly. They just need to suck it up if they want to learn the trade.

Okay, I took you as meaning someone with a PhD already, not, someone working for one. However, I never heard complaints when I was in grad school. One term I taught three classes, all for the first time, but I negotiated being made junior faculty and getting something approaching a decent salary. I did complain then, but only because the department chair promised me I wouldn’t have to teach when I moved to that school, and then went back on his word.

I suspect there is more than a little survivorship bias operating here, given you are presumably at the peak of your career and have spent the past two decades or so working mostly with senior, committed people.

Past the peak, actually. My first ten years or so were spent in a department in Bell Labs which was growing, so there were very few senior people when we started. (This wasn’t in research, so we did real work.) Any frustration came from top level mismanagement and the bumbling of Bullet Bob Allen, not from the work. I’ve worked in companies in great shape, growing stock price, and in terrible shape, and satisfaction with the engineering aspects of the job seems totally unrelated to the first derivative of the stock price.

I would contrast this with my own experience: I have worked with many intelligent, highly motivated people who left all subfields of engineering because, in their own words, “it sucked”. Most of these folks were non-miserable by disposition. It should be noted that we worked together at a highly prestigious and highly competitive Fortune 50 corporation in New York City. My sample is not exactly drawn from personnel at the bottom of the barrel.

I’ll venture a guess that the problem might have been New York. I love New York, and get the Times every day still, but it is not exactly an engineering town. I used to live near Princeton, in an area with a lot of research centers, and now I live in Silicon Valley, and around here being an engineer is still cool. We’ve got billboards which your average person wouldn’t even understand. But when everyone you know is working on Wall Street making scads of money pushing paper around, I can see how it would be disheartening.

Plenty of people have left financial services because it sucks. I am one of them.

My hat’s off to you. My daughter has an econ degree from the U. of Chicago, and she knew lots of people who went into commodities, but she thought is sounded soul deadening.

[Maeglin]

@Malthus

Though I do think that lawyering can be a lot of fun, as it poses enormous challenges. It is “fun” in the way I would imagine something like rock climbing is fun - only the challenge is intellectual and not physical.

Funny you should say that. One of the reasons I did not pursue a career in law is because I thought the physical challenges were not to my liking. I simply cannot function at the level required with so little sleep. One of my best friends has absolutely no problem sleeping four hours per night or putting several days at a time in at work with no rest. I found out pretty early that I just cannot do this.

It carries some arguable cachet - certainly more than “I dunno what , really - living with the 'rents and figuring my shit out”, which is in many cases the less embellished answer to the question ‘what do you do?’.

Just about everything carries more cachet than that, though.

To my mind at least there is absolutely nothing wrong with a period of confusion in early adulthood - aside from a very few focused people who always knew what they wanted, it seems to be more or less the default position for most in our society. Even into later adulthood for some.

I completely agree. It is usually very difficult to impossible to make a commitment to a particular career before you even experience it. I did a variety of things as well: political activism, pseudo-law, corporate finance, quantitative analytics, along with a year in grad school before I landed where I am now.

To my mind the issue is this: knowing what your dreams truly are (something that, for us not-super-focused types, changes all the time) and having some appreciation of one’s own ability to achieve them, in light of the actual efforts one must make to do so and one’s objective abilities.

Part of it us just finding an unquestionable level of commitment to your dreams that for me, only came from the experience of doing years of crummy things that were non-dreams.

@Angel_of_the_Lord

The problem is–and this is going to sound arrogant–is that I’m really, really damn smart. National Merit Scholar, won writing awards in high school, AP Classes, OMG smart.

It does sound arrogant because it is arrogant. The size of the field in your high school is what, a few hundred people? National Merit recognizes about 15k out of 1.5 million people who take the PSAT. Supposing that 75% of the finalists from the past fifteen years are still in the workforce, that’s already 170,000 people you are competing for jobs with in the US alone.

There are a lot of Chinese & Indians smarter than you.

I used to want to do this in the city, too–but then I realized that the city is expensive and full of things and fashion and distraction and, while those things are fun–especially the cultural events–they make it a lot harder to live simply, which is what I want to do.

You might find that it is both more difficult and more rewarding to live a simple life in the city than it is where life is simple by default.

[Maeglin]

@Voyager

Okay, I took you as meaning someone with a PhD already, not, someone working for one. However, I never heard complaints when I was in grad school.

I definitely believe you. I think there are two forces at work currently: the gradual deprofessionalization of academia as well as an increasing sense of entitlement among grad students, especially in a place like NY that often requires significant family or other support for grad students to live.

I am a little off the beaten path having done time in the private sector for a decade before going back for my PhD and having to consult part-time to make ends meet. I wake up every day and think, holy crap, these crazy people are paying me to do what I love to do. Complaining about it is inconceivable for me.

I’ll venture a guess that the problem might have been New York. I love New York, and get the Times every day still, but it is not exactly an engineering town. I used to live near Princeton, in an area with a lot of research centers, and now I live in Silicon Valley, and around here being an engineer is still cool. We’ve got billboards which your average person wouldn’t even understand. But when everyone you know is working on Wall Street making scads of money pushing paper around, I can see how it would be disheartening.

I’ll buy that. The most typical complaints I have heard are: the companies are just crap places to work, and people don’t like working on micro-projects of micro-projects. I remember one really happy engineer I went to college with: he quit his office job after two miserable years and went into civil engineering. I ran into him years later by chance as I was passing a work site and he just loved it. Overseeing the construction of skyscrapers is pretty awesome in a Howard Roark sort of way, so I can definitely see why it would be very fulfilling.

My hat’s off to you. My daughter has an econ degree from the U. of Chicago, and she knew lots of people who went into commodities, but she thought is sounded soul deadening.

What I did was even less exciting. Now I have the privilege of studying the political economy of the ancient world, which won’t make me rich and is interesting to about 50 people in the entire world. But it’s the dream and I definitely love it.

[Kearsen]

Is it better to have a dream that lends itself to destroying one’s earning potential later in life?

Look at any person who plays sports. If they are really good, they learn early on that being good is what counts. A majority of those focus solely on the sport of choice and choose to disregard studies which may lessen their dream but increase their long range earning potential.
I don’t want to say that this is strictly a racial issue but it hits racial minorities harder than the average white dude (maybe because they excel in sports more than those same white guys)

Following your dream isn’t necessarily a bad thing (in the philosophical sense)but it could be potentially disastrous (in the literal one)

[mswas]

@Angel_of_the_Lord

Yes. Yes it is. Because, usually, “pursue your dreams” is code for “do what we think is awesome.”

I have dreams. I want to live somewhere near an ocean or large, preferably in a small town, and I want to work at somewhere low-stress, like a store. Maybe I could own it, maybe not. I want low-stress. I want a low cost of living. I want to be able to write on the side, and I want to pretty much be away from a lot of things.

The problem is–and this is going to sound arrogant–is that I’m really, really damn smart. National Merit Scholar, won writing awards in high school, AP Classes, OMG smart. And so, growing up–and even now–I have had no shortage of people who’ve been wanting to tell me what, exactly, I should be doing with my life. Be a doctor, be a journalist, be a lawyer, do technical writing, be a famous novelist, go into finance, be a scientist–blah blah blah blah blah.

I used to want to do this in the city, too–but then I realized that the city is expensive and full of things and fashion and distraction and, while those things are fun–especially the cultural events–they make it a lot harder to live simply, which is what I want to do. The thing is, explaining to someone that, yeah, I pretty much want to do something simple, and be brilliant on my own, and be away from the crowd and kind of isolated, leads to “but you’re so smart.”

I’m smart, but I have very little traditional ambition. If I’d realized this a hell of a lot sooner, I’d probably be happier.

Move to Vieques, Belize, Costa Rica or Kawai and let the haters shut the fuck up. You can write a novel there. If your dream were feasible for me I could start living it by next week. You’re lucky that you have such an easy dream. Go down to the Florida keys and get certified as a scuba instructor or something. Or sailing or whatever. Touristy vacation spots usually have room for shopkeepers, waiters, bartenders etc… The expense is food because it’s an island. I mentioned Vieques cuz I love it but if you wanted to live somewhere cheap in PR Vega Baja is fucking amazing.

Don’t be stupid. Don’t let other people tell you how to live, be smart, follow your dream!

[Angel_of_the_Lord]

@Maeglin

It does sound arrogant because it is arrogant. The size of the field in your high school is what, a few hundred people? National Merit recognizes about 15k out of 1.5 million people who take the PSAT. Supposing that 75% of the finalists from the past fifteen years are still in the workforce, that’s already 170,000 people you are competing for jobs with in the US alone.

There are a lot of Chinese & Indians smarter than you.

The ninety-ninth percentile is more than smart enough when you’re talking about other people’s expectations. I know that there are a lot of people smarter than me. That doesn’t change the way that parents, teachers, friends, co-workers, and anybody-the-fuck-else treats you, nor does it lessen the expectations that they place on you.

And it doesn’t necessarily lessen the expectations that you place on yourself, but that’s a whole 'nother kettle of wax.

You might find that it is both more difficult and more rewarding to live a simple life in the city than it is where life is simple by default.

I might. And what I want might change. But a series of astoundingly bad life decisions (book smart != emotionally smart; book smart != sane, for that matter) has made it so that I still have time to figure that out.

[Malthus]

@Angel_of_the_Lord

Yes. Yes it is. Because, usually, “pursue your dreams” is code for “do what we think is awesome.”

I have dreams. I want to live somewhere near an ocean or large, preferably in a small town, and I want to work at somewhere low-stress, like a store. Maybe I could own it, maybe not. I want low-stress. I want a low cost of living. I want to be able to write on the side, and I want to pretty much be away from a lot of things.

The problem is–and this is going to sound arrogant–is that I’m really, really damn smart. National Merit Scholar, won writing awards in high school, AP Classes, OMG smart. And so, growing up–and even now–I have had no shortage of people who’ve been wanting to tell me what, exactly, I should be doing with my life. Be a doctor, be a journalist, be a lawyer, do technical writing, be a famous novelist, go into finance, be a scientist–blah blah blah blah blah.

I used to want to do this in the city, too–but then I realized that the city is expensive and full of things and fashion and distraction and, while those things are fun–especially the cultural events–they make it a lot harder to live simply, which is what I want to do. The thing is, explaining to someone that, yeah, I pretty much want to do something simple, and be brilliant on my own, and be away from the crowd and kind of isolated, leads to “but you’re so smart.”

I’m smart, but I have very little traditional ambition. If I’d realized this a hell of a lot sooner, I’d probably be happier.

Smart does not, however, also mean wise.

What I have found is that the ability to pursue your actual dreams, as opposed to chasing after bright shiny brass rings held out by others, has more to do with wise than smart.

Also, I’ve come to understand that having smarts in and of itself means very little. What matters is what you do with it.

[mswas]

@Malthus

Smart does not, however, also mean wise.

What I have found is that the ability to pursue your actual dreams, as opposed to chasing after bright shiny brass rings held out by others, has more to do with wise than smart.

Also, I’ve come to understand that having smarts in and of itself means very little. What matters is what you do with it.

You’re very wise.

We should feed the dreamers to the capitalists eh Malthus?

[Malthus]

@Maeglin

Funny you should say that. One of the reasons I did not pursue a career in law is because I thought the physical challenges were not to my liking. I simply cannot function at the level required with so little sleep. One of my best friends has absolutely no problem sleeping four hours per night or putting several days at a time in at work with no rest. I found out pretty early that I just cannot do this.

Not all forms of law require going without sleep. Certainly I have found it is not a 9 to 5 type job, but rare is the day I’m home after say 9.

I’d say the big drawback is not lack of sleep or the like from excess work, but the stress. I mostly do regulatory work, meaning my opinion is what the client has to go by on whether a particular course of action (often a very complex deal) is thorougly legal or not, and what the regulatory and litigation risks are; also, I’m suggesting changes they may make. If I’m wrong, there are all sorts of possibilities for various kinds of disaster, which is the sort of thing that does sometimes keep me awake at night: an error by me can cost literally millions of dollars in damages, result in my firm being sued, etc.

[Malthus]

@mswas

You’re very wise.

We should feed the dreamers to the capitalists eh Malthus?

What, as chops or in concentrated pill form?

Anyway, as a capitalist running dog lackey … where can I buy me some?

[mswas]

@Malthus

Not all forms of law require going without sleep. Certainly I have found it is not a 9 to 5 type job, but rare is the day I’m home after say 9.

I’d say the big drawback is not lack of sleep or the like from excess work, but the stress. I mostly do regulatory work, meaning my opinion is what the client has to go by on whether a particular course of action (often a very complex deal) is thorougly legal or not, and what the regulatory and litigation risks are; also, I’m suggesting changes they may make. If I’m wrong, there are all sorts of possibilities for various kinds of disaster, which is the sort of thing that does sometimes keep me awake at night: an error by me can cost literally millions of dollars in damages, result in my firm being sued, etc.

Heh, I’d have to go through a whole lot of schooling to get to the point of law school, the only law I could see really inspiring me is anti-trust/class-action, which I can only imagine requires sick amounts of hours, but if you get the right case it can make you a billionaire.

[mswas]

@Malthus

What, as chops or in concentrated pill form?

How about as intellectual properties?

Anyway, as a capitalist running dog lackey … where can I buy me some?

I would say Wal Mart but I can see you are a higher pedigree of running dog, so you can get yours at Neiman Marcus.

[Malthus]

@mswas

Heh, I’d have to go through a whole lot of schooling to get to the point of law school, the only law I could see really inspiring me is anti-trust/class-action, which I can only imagine requires sick amounts of hours, but if you get the right case it can make you a billionaire.

At least you didn’t say “I wanna do international law”. That’s the standard “knows nothing about the actual practice but has decided it sounds cool” answer.

[The reason this causes rolled eyes in law firms is that actual real-life international law work tends to be either enforcement of foreign judgments, drafting of multi-jurisdiction transactions, or international arbitrations - all areas both arcane, complex and often tedious]

Plaintiff side class proceedings work is a bit of a contingency fee crapshoot and firms that do that work tend to work as litigation factories, pursuing a number of such cases at once.

I’ve done some defendant side class proceedings stuff, though nowadays I don’t do much litigation. My practice is more designed to help people avoid litigation in doing useful things.

[mswas]

@Malthus

At least you didn’t say “I wanna do international law”. That’s the standard “knows nothing about the actual practice but has decided it sounds cool” answer.

[The reason this causes rolled eyes in law firms is that actual real-life international law work tends to be either enforcement of foreign judgments, drafting of multi-jurisdiction transactions, or international arbitrations - all areas both arcane, complex and often tedious]

Plaintiff side class proceedings work is a bit of a contingency fee crapshoot and firms that do that work tend to work as litigation factories, pursuing a number of such cases at once.

I’ve done some defendant side class proceedings stuff, though nowadays I don’t do much litigation. My practice is more designed to help people avoid litigation in doing useful things.

Yeah, this is more of a daydream than a dream. My desire to become a lawyer is very minimal. I’ll stick with pursuing my dream as a writer, maybe one day write an episode of Law and Order or something. I get so many different dreams in my head that I think that’s why writer has persisted because it’s a way to pursue many dilettantish dreams all under one roof. Want to be a lawyer but not bad enough to go to law school and then deal with the tedium of preparing lots of briefs? Just write a character who is a lawyer!

I know some lawyers who do international law at the UN and yes, they tell me it’s very tedious.

Law is very interesting in the retelling when a story can be encapsulated at a cocktail party but I just don’t think I have the stamina for it. Probably for the same reasons I can’t become a computer programmer.

[msmith537]

@Voyager

The engineers I know get joy from figuring things out and solving problems. I’ve worked for top tier companies all my life, so maybe the story is different in little third tier ones. Just because you have no interest in field X doesn’t mean that everyone working in field X is a miserable cubicle dwelling wage slave.

I’ve worked for a number of different companies and what I’ve found is the culture of the company and the people there can make the difference between a job that you occassionally find frustrating and one that makes you frustrated with your entire life.

I’ve never really had a firm “dream” of what I wanted to do for a living. Growing up I was gifted smart, pretty artistic and had an interest in problem solving, tinkering with and building stuff. There was never any doubt I would go to college, but the question was what did I want to do with that? Over the years, my career goal morphed from the following:
Architect
Structural engineer
Accountant
Computer consultant
Investment banker
Management consultant
Lawyer
Collecting large paychecks

Now obviously I didn’t do all these careers. But I looked into them and made significant steps towards figuring out what they actually were about and whether that was something I actually wanted to do. As it happens, it has led me to my current job as a manager in a management consulting firm specializing in computer forensics services for large corporations. Which actually combines many of the elements from most of the goals I listed.

Although I think I may have liked being an architect as long as I was successful at it.

@mswas

Heh, I’d have to go through a whole lot of schooling to get to the point of law school, the only law I could see really inspiring me is anti-trust/class-action, which I can only imagine requires sick amounts of hours, but if you get the right case it can make you a billionaire.

Considering there are less than a thousand billionares on the planet and most are industrialists and entrepreneurs, I don’t think that’s technically correct. You may have to be satisfied just getting by on tens of millions of dollars.