What Rhymes With 2006?

It's been a while since I've posted on this blog. Apologies for that. Or maybe not. Isn't a bit presumptious to assume that anyone is even interested in reading this?

Well, assuming, arguendo, the above, I will explain the delay. I didn't want to bore everyone by posting the minutia of law school finals, and the anxiety and the blah, blah, blah. I made a conscious decision not to do that (even though, now, I am talking about, so that kinda negates, in some small way, the decision to not speak of it). Suffice it to say, I had the best semester of law school last semester. I pulled it all off - got a great GPA, got published, and I feel a great sense of accomplishment. Now I just gotta find a summer job.

I also decided, during the course of my finals, to cut back on the number of hours I'm taking to almost the bare full-time minimum. I want to free up time, have a life again.

I'm halfway through law school and I think I've encountered my next personal development obstacle to overcome. I wasn't intending to encounter this obstacle, and I kind of stumbled into it by accident. But now I recognize it, and I'm prepared to face it and deal with it, even if it should take a while.

The obstacle is money.

To be more precise, how people think about money, how people behave about money, in a business sense. As "smart" as I may be abstract book-wise, I am hopelessly ignorant (and maybe even STUPID?) when it comes to business sense. Two of the classes I am taking this semester - Business Corporations and Real Estate Transactions - center around the psychology of people who dedicate their lives to pursuing the "almighty dollar." Both profs have encouraged the class to read the Wall Street Journal. It occurs to me that there is a whole other world out there overlaid on the world I have inhabited my whole life, a world I imagined, but haven't directly encountered. Well, I mean, I have, to a certain extent, inasmuch as I have had jobs and worked for corporations and whatnote. But that's always been as the lowest rung on the ladder.

In other words, I guess I want to understand how the "haves" think, and how they decide to do what they do, and how they operate. Some people in this life put money above all else, in some sense, or, at least, they are unapologetic about it. "It's not personal, it's business."

Contrary to what some may think about me, as they would assume about anyone who would enter the legal profession, I am not interested in making money. Don't get me wrong, I am interested in material comfort, and providing for a family, and all of that. But I am not going to be chasing it at the expense of all else. I want to help people, to serve humanity - it's a very Bahá'í aspiration. And I have certain talents that God blessed me with that I need to develop to that end. I couldn't do much good stagnating at TV Guide or some other place.

If I can't develop a good business head, I at least want to understand the mind of someone who does so I will know how to deal with him or her. So I won't be taken advantage of, and so I can prevent someone else from being taken advantage of.

There is no greater blessing than the gift of serving others.

I hope this rant hasn't seemed too bizarre, and wish that it has made some sense. It was inspired not only by the classes I;m taking, but by a timely comment from an old friend which said, in so many words, that I was only going to law school so I could learn how to make money.

Hey, if I wanted to be completely selfish, I'd gain 800 lbs. and go float in the deep end of my parents' swimming pool.

But I'm not about that.