Work or Play

You rarely meet people who know what they want from life, and I would be lying if I professed to be able to give any such comprehensive description of myself. But I have found over the last few weeks the work that I want to do. I think.

The idea of being a barrister has always been part of my consciousness, through books and the like, but seeing the reality of the work, I realize that this is a profession that I can really do well at but more then that, it would be a profession that I would enjoy. The people I was working with, other summer students, found it incredibly odd that I chose to keep coming back, when they wanted to keep getting away with the minimum time that they could. The fact was that it was just fun to be doing the work and trying to understand the background and methods of a barrister just didn’t seem to register to them as a viable reason.

It’s odd looking back at the random things that got me to this point. I chose law at the last minute on my UCAS form, driven to that switch by the practicalities of my parents, and my own sure knowledge that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life doing maths or sciences. The public speaking skills that I picked up at MUN, were really the result of my desire to try something that someone else had recommended to me, and only later did it become something natural and something I enjoyed tremendously in my own right. The understanding of hard work and its critical importance has only lately flowed from the viscidities that marked my second year. The question in the background of course is, did I do this because those were my interests and the profession fits those, or did the profession and the interest control the activities that I was interested in. A pointless question perhaps, the answer is after all unchanged by it.

Its an interesting feeling to have a purpose suddenly. It adds clarity of goal and a focus of mind that really you lack before it. New questions, thoughts and ideas bounce around the head, the list of things that I’m curious about goes longer, and I start wondering whether that will inevitably abuse the kindness of the answerer of my questions. So far they’ve been too kind though, and my desire to be involved in the profession grows.

I hope I know where its going, I have the big picture all worked out. The question now is filling in the details and while I know it can't be easy, its just a matter of belief in myself and keeping the focus in times when the goal will seem far out of reach and blurred by the horizon.