The Current Economic Downturn: Crises or Opportunity?

As an ambitious student with a very high GPA, one of the most difficult experiences I have faced was revaluating my commitment to a Law Degree. One symptom of the same malady that was bothering me was evident at Brooklyn College. Here I pursued my undergrad degree in psychology and political science. Through out that time I noticed a direct and positive correlation between the wait time for a computer and a weakening economy. This comes as no surprise; a higher education is a patently positive way to spend your unemployed time.

Yet this influx of students was a symtpom of a shrinking job market that has affected every industry and vocation. The blogosphere and conventional media is alight with reports of a ever weaker job market-healthcare aside. Law, a highly competitive and lucrative career has also been affected; even a degree from Harvard does not ensure a “good” position.

So here I was a student with a plethora of prestigious internships under my belt, a Rabbinical degree, and a transcript replete with honors designations, yet I was truly daunted by the prospect of graduating from a top-14 law school with 150,000 in debt and a public sector job.

So began a period of indecision, self doubt, fear of failure, and a glut of other phobias. Was I what I thought I was? Could I really compete with those Ivy League 5th avenue residents? Was I destined to be a nobody-PHD withering away in a dusty library turning my nose down at all those active people making a real difference? These negative thoughts consumed me.

Out of desperation I reached out to my professors, my mentors, my family, and ultimately myself.

Then I heard a whisper. The whisper, like nature, was dictating not what I can do but what I should do. At first I thought I was crazy, after all I never heard this whisper before. But it occured to me that until now the whisper was drowned out by the shouts of monetary successes of my neighbors, my friends, even my family. The shouts proclaimed “look at what they have, look at what they have achieved, and look how happy they seem”! The shout was asserting that, if I wanted to be somebody, I neede to succeed in what everybody was pursuing. In our capitalist society that means one thing, MONEY.

Don’t get me wrong I know the role money plays in our lives, as I have very little of it. Yet the shouting was affecting how I thought of myself, it drowned the whisper of truth that I only recently was able to hear. The whisper offered a rational evaluation of what I am, and how what I am dictates what I will be successful at. A success that will result in a decent income but that will not be dictated by income. A success that will be achieved because it is my purpose to achieve; the whisper asserts that it is natural for me to be successful at what I am intended to do.

I am neither advocating complete submission to fate, nor total rejection of existentialism (in short, that we are in total control of who we are), rather the realization that just as athletes are athletic, and that writers can write, I too must look for what I have a natural affinity for. Thus an athlete can go professional or become a banker, or a writer can write books or they can jump at an opportunity to make money in mortgages. Yes I can listen to the irrational shouts of society or I can discern the whisper of the self pointing to my place in nature.

I heard my whisper as I direct result of the recent downturn in the economy. The downturn forced me to search for the whisper, the mission, the role, and I believe that I have started to hear its faint but unyielding argument. It is telling me to pursue law , but not because it will make me rich- in this economy it will not- but because it is what I have the natural capability to do it. Not only because it offers a measure of respect (respect diminished by the proverbial ambulance chaser), but also because It is my role in nature, and I can only be successful AND happy if I do what I am supposed to do.

I wonder if this downturn has forced others to disregard the irrational shouts. True there are still those elite groups of rich people, and those that continue to become rich, yet that may be their role or it may be that they are disregarding their role. It is irrelevant to me, what matters are the rational whispers in myself.