Archive for the ‘reflection’ Category
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On Tolerance
I know, and you know, that I haven’t posted in a while. Insert an excuse and apology here. Ok, let’s move on, because I have stuff I want to write about.
Tolerance, sympathy, and understanding are important parts of my life. I find myself angered often by intolerance and refusal to understand other people who are different from us.
I’ve always considered myself sensitive to people who are a different race or nationality than me; have a different sexual lifestyle than me; are a different social class than me. While I certainly am not tolerant of all behavior (lying, stealing, hypocrisy, to name a few), I think it’s important to try to understand – whether I condone the behavior or not - even the least tolerable people. One of my life lessons that I’ve learned is how important it is to be sensitive to people who are different than me and exercise empathy. (And while I’m at it, I’d like to admit that I’m not perfect at it, but I value it highly and always strive for it.) I think it’s perfectly fine to disagree with a behavior. For example, I do not have tolerance for racism. However, I don’t hate people that say or do racist things. See the difference?
Unfortunately, not everyone is the same as me. I’ve heard way too much racism and obese-ism/overweight discrimination/“fat hate”/body bigotry/size-ism/whatever you want to call it–than is acceptable.
I think it is morally wrong to judge someone based on the person’s skin color. Many times, I hear racism that comes in the form of comments that draw parallels between a person’s race and that person’s traits/characteristics. Sometimes it’s not as outright – sometimes it’s almost like a race-“phobia” – or other-phobia (and don’t even get me started on calling it a phobia – it’s hate. I don’t empathize with racism, and calling it a “phobia” is too nice). Racism is very much alive today. I have heard the question: Is racism still a problem today? My answer is HELL YES, ARE YOU LIVING UNDER A ROCK?
Unfortunately, while many of us that agree that racism as wrong, many of us do not think that judging a person’s character based on that person’s weight is wrong. “Body bigots” ascribe personality characteristics based on whether that person is overweight. Sometimes it’s “lazy,” “dumb,” or sometimes it’s less creative and just “gross.”
Assuming personal characteristics based on appearance is an improper, illogical judgment. It’s not the same as racism, but, like my intolerance for racism, I don’t think judging a person based on what they look like is ok. I could be nice and say it’s just superficial but I believe it’s far worse – it’s bigoted and bully-like. And again, sometimes the way it surfaces is not as forthright as saying fat person = lazy; sometimes it’s fat-phobia – or other-phobia. And it’s that judgment about a person, based on how they look, that I believe is bigoted.
My parents taught me that beauty from the inside is more important than what you see on the outside – and there is nothing beautiful about the innards of size-ism.
Naturally, since I’m emphasizing the importance of understanding people, I think it is contingent upon us to understand size-ists. It doesn’t take a psychoanalyst to reach plausible theories: insecurity, fear, projection. But it’s immoral to derive (consciously or not) pleasure out of pointing out other people’s imperfections.
The truth is that you never know what a person deals with behind closed doors (Exhibit A: myself). Save your judgment for people and instead place it on the FDA, Frito-Lay, fast-food chains, and the like. Compassion and understanding is the best part of the human race, and judging others based on appearance is something we were supposed to learn not to do in Kindergarten.
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Why I Left the Law
“Why did I even start” is probably a better question!
I practiced law for 2.5 years after I graduated and passed the Missouri bar in 2006. I had no idea what I was in for.
Writing a post about why I left the law is tricky. I don’t completely point my finger at the law firm I worked for after I graduated, at myself due to my personal preferences, or at the general malaise of law firm life – I know that my leaving the law was a combination of those things together.
That being said, here’s the gist of why I left, and why I haven’t gone back:
- Lack of work-life balance
I could give concrete examples of my experience to prove how out of whack a lawyer’s work-life balance is. But my specific examples are no different than the majority of lawyers: they have no personal life. Vacation is discouraged and often weekends are spent working. You go into work early and leave late. Yes, you can always take work home, but law firms are very traditional and it is more important to be physically at the office.
In order to be a successful lawyer, it really helps if you are more of the live-to-work type than the work-to-live type. I learned that I was more the latter type. At least, I thought I was when work was something I hated.
The firm I worked for had rather “mild” hours compared to some others. However, the easier hours were perhaps a compensation for the constant pressures to bring in more clients and the billable hour standards.
- Income
This is going to shock a lot of people, but most lawyers don’t get paid what you think they do. I’m not lying – some lawyers ARE paid very well. But a lot of lawyers don’t get paid more than you. My husband, a computer engineer, made much more than I did. Money isn’t everything to me, but spending a lot of time at the office and leaving with the paycheck that I got was not worth it to me. While my bank account sees less money now than it did when I was practicing law, I make more per hour.
- Constant conflict
Being a lawyer is like being a warrior in a suit. Every day, you prepare for battle. I was in court almost every single day. I was in depositions every week. But I hated conflict. I enjoyed settling cases much more than I did arguing with opposing counsel. Often, I faced middle-aged men that seemed to think they could bully me. What they didn’t know was that I couldn’t be bullied, but bickering with them made me start to hate practicing law even more. I noticed that fighting back against bullies was making my life more difficult. But I didn’t have much choice in my position. It’s not news that lawyers are awful. But for some reason it was for me. Nowadays, I feel a little cheeky when I call myself a quick learner…
Not long after I left the law, I took theStrengthsfinder personality test. The test tells you what your strengths are. My first strength was “Harmony.” In other words, I hate conflict. Before I went to law school, I wanted to be a judge. To be a judge, you need to practice law for quite a while. Life lesson: Doing something you hate for 60 hours a week for several years, just for the chance to do something you might like, is a bad idea. In many situations, I am able to advocate for both sides. You would think this makes me a good advocate – instead, it made me see the other side no matter what side I was on. This is a strength, however, in fields other than advocacy.
- Anxiety/Stress
It didn’t take long before I realized there was something incredibly wrong with my career choice. Every night I woke up in the middle of the night, sometimes several times, worried about one of my cases – sometimes it would be a totally random case, or one that had a hearing that day.
As I became more responsible for cases, jury trial dates loomed on my calendar – that meant I would be responsible for trying cases by myself. This is the natural order of things. Some lawyers might complain that they don’t get enough courtroom experience; personally, I would have liked a MUCH longer period of getting my feet wet before I dove in. That’s just how I am.I didn’t talk about my anxiety much though, so it came as a surprise to my family and maybe some of my friends and definitely the firm I worked for. The month leading up to my resignation was one of the worst experiences in my career. I had been trying to “make do” for about a year, when one day I realized that twice that week I had driven home sobbing because I hated my job so much. I realized that I was going to have to leave my job and waiting around longer for things to get better wasn’t an option anymore.
I didn’t wake up one day and decide to leave. I had woken up every day for two and a half of years and decided not to quit that day.It was time to stop making that decision.
Frequently Asked Questions:- Why don’t you be a mediator? A: For the same reason it would be impossible for me to be a judge. This is a position that requires many more years of advocacy experience, and that is not a cost I am willing to pay.
- Why don’t you go into another field of law?A: I was in litigation primarily, so this is a fair question. I got experience in many different practice areas (I am truly grateful for that). To be a non-litigator, or transactional type lawyer, I would have had to start afresh in a new field. This is tough to do at any time. I thought about this while I was in litigation. However, I am not sure I would have enjoyed this either; the practice areas I touched in litigation were the areas that I liked in law school the most. All that said, if the opportunity to engage in transactional law came to me, I would consider it. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard of any opportunities. Perhaps the recruiters have lost my phone number. (That was sarcasm.)
- Are you going to go back and practice?A: No. However, I’m about as sure about that as I was about practicing law in the first place, so I’ve learned to never say never and never say always.
I am currently licensed, active, but not practicing. - What do you do now? A: I’m a technical writer for the IT department of a large St. Louis-based company. I like it because I get to use my writing and logical thinking skills. Also, I think I am a perennial student. This job lets me learn new things – there is always something new for me to learn about technology. It’s another reason I like blogging – I don’t know what the hell I’m doing most of the time. I work full-time, 40 hours a week. The IT field is considerably less stressful than the legal field. That makes for a happy Michelle.
- Why did you go to law school in the first place?A: I guess it started with being on the debate team in high school. I liked abstract thinking, writing, and I wasn’t afraid of public speaking. I had a knack for writing especially, but I never thought I would be able to cut it as a writer. So I thought law was the more bankable option. It was a cop out.
- Isn’t that a lot of time/money/investment to just throw it away?A: I don’t really think this is a question, just a judgment. And if there is a single person out there who hasn’t spent time and/or money on something and not had it work out the way they planned, please, let me know who you are – that should go in the Guinness Book of World Records. Seriously – break ups, divorces, career changes, movie flops, business failures, happen every day. Shit happens. I’m only one of thousands of law school graduates every year who decided that law was a bad idea. Check out JD Underground. Happy lawyers are a minority. It is not my fault that being a lawyer is a total disappointment. I do take responsibility for not knowing better in advance. Live and learn.
- Was your family supportive?A: I am extremely lucky to have an incredibly supportive family. Mark was extremely supportive. Obviously, he knew the most about my daily anguish – my stress came home with me. My parents and other family members were surprised, I think. Sometimes I think people get used to seeing you a certain way, and defining you by your career. That’s especially true with lawyers, doctors, nurses, firefighters, and many other professional specialties. I think it makes people a little bit uncomfortable to define you as something different. The shock just takes a bit to wear off.
- What about law school debt?A: I went to a state law school where I qualified as a resident, however, I still have law school debt. I continue to pay my loans. I do accept charity.
If you have more questions, please ask away!
READ MY FOLLOW UP POST, HOW I LEFT THE LAW. -
My story
I am about to tell you my story that I have not addressed here before. The reason I am telling this story now, here on this blog, is that sometimes I feel a conflict between what I write here and my personal story. On this blog, I write about food, fitness, running, and at times, weight. Whether it’s rational or not, omitting my full story here has made me feel less authentic.
Not many people know my story about my struggle with self-image and eating disorder. Here it is.
Nearly six years ago, I was diagnosed with an eating disorder and depression. I was in law school at the time. For two years before that, I had engaged in cycles of food restriction. My weight yo-yoed in tandem with heartbreak. Right before I was diagnosed, I had engaged in anorexic behaviors for months that led to a battle with bulimia coupled with crippling depression. Although I had flirted with food restriction for months, a single month of bulimic behavior was what shocked me into getting help. I then realized that I had a problem that I could not fix myself, and I knew there was a deeper problem that wasn’t just about stopping the behavior. No one knew I had a problem until this point.
I got help. I received counseling from a psychologist that specialized in treatment of eating disorders. She helped me immensely. After a few months of sessions, however, I realized that the depression still made me unable to concentrate on anything, so I began taking medication as well.
I kept my diagnosis mostly to myself. To this day, I don’t really know who knew about it and who didn’t. But if I was to guess, not many people did. Bulimia doesn’t mean I was underweight. Instead, because I began battling bulimia when I had been severely restricting my food intake, I gained weight. As you might imagine, that made the disease very intense. I was committed to recovering, however.One of the people that did know about my eating disorder told me something I will never forget. She told me, “You will always have an eating disorder.” I really did not want to believe her. I really wanted to recover, and I really wanted to believe it was possible.
It turned out that she was right. I still struggle with what verb tense to use when I refer to my eating disorder: Did I recover? Do I still have an eating disorder? In a way, I did recover and I didn’t. In a way, I always had one. I remember some troubling behaviors around food that I engaged in back in Junior High. The first time I remember having a negative body image was in second grade. While the actual behavioral manifestation of my eating disorder is long gone (I feel recovered), I still struggle with things like negative self-talk and body image problems (I feel less recovered when I do).
I also feel a conflict between stating that I have a desire to lose weight and yet admitting that I once had an eating disorder. Can I say that I may or may not be recovered still but want to lose weight? Is that hypocritical or contradictory or just plain wrong? Does it make people think that obviously I still have a problem? I will admit that I feel very uneasy saying I want to lose weight. It still seems taboo; if I am recovered, I “shouldn’t” want to lose weight.
I believe it is possible to have had an eating disorder and later become overweight (like because of a pregnancy, or just eating more or less healthy than you should). I am not overweight. I am just a few pounds over where I want to be. I am committed to losing weight in only healthy ways. You won’t see me skipping meals or restricting myself. You will see me work out, but not in an unhealthy way or in unhealthy amounts. I believe that my desire to lose a few pounds comes from a good place.
I have the best relationship that I’ve had with food in almost a decade. I still struggle with feeling overly negative about myself, but the eating disorder taught me a lot of life lessons. One thing I am better about now, more than ever, is reaching out to the people that know me the best and asking for their support or help. I am also better at recognizing irrational thought patterns.
The most important lesson I learned from my eating disorder is compassion and empathy for other people. Not just compassion for people dealing with similar struggles, but any struggle. It made me a more sensitive, understanding person to others and to myself. I’ve learned that while many people do not understand eating disorders, everyone has issues of their own – whether they know it or not. I always knew to never judge a book by its cover, but I know that lesson now on a deeper level. For that reason, I never wish away the struggle I had. The personal grief I put myself through taught me more about life than I think I could have learned in a lifetime.
All that said, I do intend to write about weight loss here. I will always write about it with care. If this makes you uncomfortable in some way because you suffer or suffered from an eating disorder, please do not read. However, I am open to criticism, comments, and support.
Just please be nice.
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2010 Accomplishments
Hi people that read my blog!
I know I posted my resolutions for 2011, but I haven’t yet posted a list of my accomplishments for 2010! While there are definitely a lot of things I want to improve in my life next year, I’ve done a lot this year, and I don’t want to discount that.
Here is what I accomplished in 2010:
1) I ran my first full marathon in April. All the preparation, the weekend mornings sacrificed, the tough training, and the tough race – it was all well worth it in the end. I definitely want to run another full marathon some day!
2) I ran a personal record number of races in 2010 – 7 races! Check out my Chasing page.
3) I coached a team for Girls on the Run, ending with a 5k.
4) I left a crappy job and got a much better one! I also learned to better understand HTML and write a little and edit it.
5) I had my one year anniversary (and ran a half marathon that day).
6) Mark and I had our first garage sale. People really like to haggle. We learned the importance of being firm with people.
7) I went skiing in Colorado with my family.
I have made a lot of progress with my blog. It’s now hosted by Dreamhost and I changed the name so it’s not .wordpress.com. I also became a Foodbuzz featured publisher and I have improved my photography skills (or should I say I now have some photography skills 
).9) I completed a 30 day Real Simple cookthrough. I learned a lot about cooking – it helped me become more confident cooking meat, more adventurous on just throwing a meal together from an idea that grew in my head, and I definitely gained a lot more spices.
10) I went out of my comfort zone of running and took swimming lessons and biked a lot. As you know, I also went to my first spin class a couple of weekends ago.
11) I grew a really great garden. My peas and lettuce didn’t fare that well, but I had tons of cucumbers and tomato.
I did a lot this year! I think I hit all the high points – but there are even more small things that I can think of. It was nice to think of all the good things that I’ve done – even though there are things I want to improve, acknowledging my hard work keeps it all in perspective.
I want to know what awesome things YOU did this year… hit me up in the comments
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Another year, another list
It’s that time of year. Resolutions! Hardly a year of my life has gone by without a resolution list to look at for a few weeks and then toss out.
A little accountability this year . . .
I’m kidding about tossing out resolutions, obviously. I actually keep my resolutions in my Google documents so that I never lose them (even if I don’t keep them). I title them “2010 Goals”* so that they are easy to find, and throughout the year I check in and see how I’m doing. I don’t really do that systematically, just whenever the mood strikes (or I feel bored enough). However, posting them here for all to see changes the game a little bit–oh hai, accountability. (One way to increase resolution adherence is to have a system of accountability.)
* I use goal and resolution interchangeably. Anyone that says they are, in fact, different needs to look up the definition of semantics.
Resolutions say a lot about you
I think we can all acknowledge that change is hard. Habits are hard to break. Looking back at resolutions over the years, I can see a pattern – resolutions provide an insight to not only your bad habits, but also the habits that you perceive to be bad. For example, I am putting “Declutter house” on my resolutions list. However, there are many people in this world who do not see excessive possessions as a problem, and therefore would never think to put such a resolution on a list. (Watch the show American Pickers, and you’ll know what I mean.) I also have habits others might perceive to be negative, like loading the dishwasher improperly (right, Mark?), but I am not putting it on this year’s goal list (sorry, Mark). Anyway, it’s interesting to look back at resolutions and their patterns.
But Resolutions Aren’t Cool
Some people don’t make resolutions. I guess having resolutions is perceived as nerdy or uncool. I’m too old to care if I’m not cool. Also, perhaps it’s cooler to embrace unbridled self-acceptance. Acting as though you care about anything is anti-cool. The great thing about resolutions is that I get to be my own arbiter of cool. And you know what, I think having goals, caring about them, and achieving them is really cool. I think success is cool.
Sticking to it
With a mind towards sticking to my resolutions, I reviewed The Happiness Project’s advice on how to stick to resolutions. And you should, too! People say not to make resolutions because they often fail, but how about we just make resolutions and try to acheive them? I’m sure we know what Thomas Edison (with his prodigious list of failures) would have said about that.
And here are mine
- Fitness related: get fitter. Specifically, lose weight. I’m in a healthy range, but I’m still definitely over where I would like to be. In 2011, I’d really like to be fitter and healthier. I’ll be turning 30, which is kind of terrifying. (p.s. The last few weeks, I have really been working on this and making some progress!)
- Work out in the morning. This has been an ongoing goal for some time but I think it’s essential for making sure I get a workout in before I get consumed by work or some other activity.
- Budget money better. Pay more debt off.
- Improve communication with my husband.
- Career:
- continue to work on blog and photography with my blog
- figure out what I’m doing with articles I’m writing on the side and whether to continue it
- get and read books related to IT work that I do
- figure out what to do with my law license (go inactive this year or not)
- Improve home
- donate or sell extra stuff (possibly go through one room a month?)
- work on home to-do list to get it in better (selling) condition
- Stand up for myself and my values more. This sounds vague, but it means something more specific to me. I often feel that I am face-to-face with instances of bigotry but in the past have either not confronted it at all or not confronted it in a meaningful way. I want to work on positive confrontation of bigotry, and things or people that attack me personally.
I really enjoy reading other people’s resolutions, so I hope you enjoyed reading mine. Does anyone else have similar resolutions?
About Me
My name is Michelle and I like to write about running, food, and fitness in general. Check out my About Michelle section for more!
