Tonight was my weekly therapy session. It was a good one.
I wound up talking about how I have so many interests and how I never know if I’m actually going to settle on one. I’m a law clerk, which means that I went to law school, and I’ve never really been sure if getting that degree was the right decision. It’s left me thousands of dollars in debt and I don’t even feel temperamentally suited to being a lawyer. I’m not adversarial by nature and I don’t like screwing people over. Great career choice. Well, I went to law school for the wrong reasons. I thought it would bring me stability, financial and otherwise, and a greater sense of self-worth. Plus my parents thought it was a good idea; that had to be a factor, at least subconsciously.
What do I really want to do? My first love is writing; it would be great to do something with that. And lately — ever since I started this blog — I’ve become interested in computer languages and computer technology again. It would be fun to have a computer career. At other times in the last few years, I’ve wanted to be a psychotherapist, a history teacher, a biographer, a classical music critic, a musicologist, a choral conductor, a newspaper columnist, a soap opera writer, an author, a lawyer for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund…
I love devouring information. I love to learn for the sake of learning. I’m easily distracted, which means that the Web is a blessing and a curse for me. Some days I get so little work done because I can’t stop surfing the Web, moving from one interesting site to the next. Sites like Metafilter, which I recently found, certainly don’t help matters.
One helpful source in this whole journey for a satisfying career is Barbara Sher’s website. Her books are wonderful for people who can’t quite figure out what they want to do in life, as well as for those who know what they want to do but can’t figure out how to get there. And her site’s discussion boards can be very helpful and enlightening. There’s a great community of people there. Read her books — especially Wishcraft and I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What it Was.