And you may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful house”
And you may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful wife”

-Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime”

I am usually fairly good about remembering the source of pseudo-philosophical claptrap that I find meaningful. They are few, far between, and perhaps the most valuable of the things I collect. As with most valuable collections, provenance is important.

But every once in a while something echoes in my head without a traceable source.

Today’s paraphrased doggrel is a derivative of the reincarnation/karma/time is a flat circle concept: life presents us with the same lessons over and over until we finally learn them.

One of my recurring lesson is to examine the source of your motivations. Put another way, “Do you actually want what you think you want?”

An example: in law school, I went through an on campus interview gauntlet, wherein students go from room to room interviewing with representatives from Big Law law firms. For both of you reading this that are not lawyers, these are the fancy-pants ultra-expensive 150+ lawyers-in-a-granite-and-steel-highrise (think The Devil’s Advocate). This is INCREDIBLY stressful, because your entire future (paying off student loans, affording a home, etc.) depends on the 30 minutes you have to convince this random person that you are the finest young legal mind they’ve ever seen.

Or so your brain and your school’s career advisors tell you. But your brain is a Fucking Liar, and those counselors only give a shit about how much money you’ll be able to donate back to the school in appreciation for the education you already paid for.

The reality is that most attorneys do not work for Shitstain, Schlitztain and Mork on the 83rd Floor downtown. Most attorneys still manage to pay their loans, pay their mortgages, and still have enough left over to rot their liver with a reasonable grade of Strong Drink. It works out fine.

But Young Overly Anxious Law Student doesn’t know this. He or she is living and dying by the invitations (or rejections) they get as a result of these interviews.

I had just broken up with my long-time girlfriend. I was a giant ball of stress and recently diagnosed depression. She was batshit neurotic in a way that was becoming less and less charming as I struggled to get healthy. In retrospect, it was a good time for the relationship to self-destruct.

But one of our last conversations was one of the most important. In that gloriously naive way that only those under 28 can be, we tried to remain friends. I was telling her about the interviews that day in minute detail and going into a spin about whether they had gone well or terribly when she stopped me and asked “Is any of these jobs what you really want?”

And I stopped. Because the question was dead on target. I thought I wanted a big fancy firm job because that’s what I was supposed to want. Those firms were the pinnacle of the legal profession, only taking the brightest and best. And that’s what you were shooting for, right?To be one of the best?

Horseshit.

I knew what Big Firm Life was. I grew up with my dad pulling 11 hour days and at least one day per weekend to meet a 2200 billable-hour minimum. I remember the bullshit politics, the frustration at clients and partners, the toxic atmosphere that constantly told my father he Wasn’t Good Enough.

Even knowing all that, I jumped through the hoops. I studied my ass off to get a good class rank. I researched firms. I went through the interview wringer.

All for something I was told I should want.

This goes on in the background constantly in our lives. The entire structure of social norms and expectations depends on steering individuals toward a commonly-shared set of values regarding what is Good and what is Not. Seventy-five percent of advertising is manufacturing demand, because we Should Want a nicer car, a nicer carpet, a Wi-Fi Juicer with Digital Rights Management fruit.

The other twenty-five percent is increasingly desperate attempts to make insurance Funny.

Eventually I made the right decision (for the time), turned down the one in-office interview I got and joined a boutique litigation firm that let me try cases. I suppose I owe my ex for that.

But here we are again. An opening at work. Diagonal promotion and management responsibilities. I am supposed to want this, not just for the extra money but because it’s another rung on the ladder. And you don’t just sit there on a ladder, right? Gotta keep moving, even if you don’t know where you’re moving to…

But I don’t want this. I don’t want to miss my kids’ ballgames because I have to work more. I don’t want underlings- I have a hard enough time managing myself.

Ambition without self-examination is a mook’s game. We are told that if we are not working toward something then we are aimless; dead-souled cogs in the machine. In truth, unthinking ambition is a way to get you to chase the carrot without even having to offer the carrot.

So take your time. Check in with yourself and explicitly think about what you value. Make sure the road you are driving down is one that you (mostly) chose.

NFL NEWS:

Everyone is ded. The injury list is both long and distinguished, headlined by Tua Tagovailoa (IR-Trent Green)

I’m not going to rehash the “should he retire?” discussion here. The sane answer is yes- Tua got his bag this off-season, and if he never plays another down, he will walk away with between $90 million and $120 million more dollars, on top of the $70+ million he’s already earned. He’s 26. Go open a Kia dealership.

Really, the discussion for me is whether the Dolphins and the league can scrape together enough long-term vision (and whatever remaining scraps of human decency might have escaped the janitor’s attention) to tell Tua he’s done for the good of the NFL.

Every single team (including Cleveland, somehow) is a $4 billion+ asset. But there is little inherent value to an NFL franchise. Selling off the uniforms and the tackling sleds and the Football Helmet Golf Cart isn’t going to get you a lot if people cease watching football. And one of the biggest threats to the popularity of football is the injury factor. The last thing the declining rate of youth participation needs is for Tua to trot out to a hero’s return versus Los Angeles and end up seizing on the field after a hit in prime time.

Paternalistic? Yes. But the NFL routinely intrudes on player freedom for worse reasons. If the NFL will keep players off the field because their behavior reflects poorly on The Shield, why not for this?

LATE UPDATE:

BWAHAHAHAHA