Four Cool Things Law School Has Taught Me (besides the law)

#1 I CAN be a morning person. I can also be a night person.

I still started law school with the notion that I just was not, by nature, a morning person. I’m really no good before 11AM. But when I started law school, I soon began to realize that indulgent sleep was beginning to be a waste of time, and I needed to start choosing to wake up early on my Saturday mornings to get productive. I also started living in an apartment facing the Pacific Ocean, another novelty in my life, and I realized that it’s not so tough to wake up with the sun when it’s staring you in the face over a sparkling, surfer-cluttered ocean, and your back porch is a few steps away. Not such a bad way to start the day, albeit kind of early.
Then, finals taught me that sleep patterns are unnecessary social constructs, that my body can actually be full of energy at 4:30AM, and that’s a good a time as any.

#2 Community is cool
I also began law school as typically a solo-studier. I might have continued that way, but I’m glad I didn’t. Beyond the obvious benefit of multiple brains studying the same material, my study group was more than that for me. They helped support me, and they helped humanize law school for me. They didn’t remind me so much of why I’m in law school, but why I’m living life -- to know people and to love people. I am beyond thankful for that.

#3 There aren’t right answers
Okay, maybe there are. But in law school, I realized that those answers aren’t really the point. After spending the majority of my life trying to get the answers right, this came as a bit of a surprise - an uncomfortable surprise at first. After awhile, I learned to embrace the fact that it’s not about my answers, but how I reached them. I realized that I never really liked absolute answers, anyway. It’s all about the “totality of the circumstances.” Ha.

#4 I’m not good at this.
Again, maybe this is a harsh statement. And maybe only partially accurate. Don’t get me wrong, I am all about being positive. But I spent a long time only pursuing things I was sure I could do well without a lot of effort. Law school has taught me that some things won’t come naturally, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not worth attacking. Law school might not come naturally to me, but so far, I think it’s worth the struggle.