I can still remember when the phrase actually had more to do with spring, a rodent, and its shadow than it did a repetitve, unpleasant situation. It's funny, sometimes, how words in our lexicon evolve; five or six years ago "friend" would never have been considered a verb, in any sense of the word. Before the mid 1990s, Groundhog Day was nothing other than a holiday.
Then, in 1993, the phrase slowly began to take on a new meaning. The meaning, as I'm sure all my readers (and by all I mean, about as many as I can count on one hand), derives from a movie written by Harold Ramis, and starring Bill Murray- that's right, Egon and Venkman collaborated to make that masterpiece. It's about a man, Phil Connors (Murray), stuck in a time warp where he just keeps repeating Groundhog Day, no matter what. It's a movie I really never understood or liked until I started practicing law.
It's hard to believe that almost three years have passed since I founded my own law practice. It seems like such a short period, and yet, my entire stint in Lawrence for law school was three years. For most students graduating law school, a firm will not hire you until you pass the Bar. Everyone in the profession knows this, but not many outside of it do. Insurance agents can work until they become certified- same thing with accountants and stock brokers (you may eventually be out of work, should you be unable to quickly become certified, but in the interim, you can work- not so for lawyers). Some firms will hire, but the reality is that unless you can appear before some judge somewhere, or sign your name on some pleading and file it somewhere, your law degree is useless. You're most likely a liability to any firm you would work for.
You could do legal research, but firms have interns and staff who do that. You can write briefs, but again, there are staff who do that; moreover, as a lawyer you're expected to argue briefs, not just write them. And at 25, you're not likely to be a Rainmaker. In short, no license, no worth; no worth, no job.
So I sat for the Kansas Bar the summer after graduating law school- and passed. The only problem was, that 2008 was the beginning of one of the worst job markets in at least 25 years, especially in legal services. Firms had been overpaid by corporations for years. Once the corporations retaining the major firms tightened their belts, firms were forced to let people go. This meant, that in addition to competing with people of my own age and experience level, I also had to compete with people from the class of 2007...and 2006...and 2005, who had just been laid off. Some firms even paid what would've been new associates to not work for anyone else, in hopes of keeping them around for when the market picked back up. Compounding the problem, was that the potential jobs for entry level lawyers were for for menial work expected of clerks and interns. I know this because I did as much my first few months after taking the Bar.
I had always wanted to make partner in a firm- any firm, large or small, or, in the alternative, start my own firm. I figured I'd spend a few years getting experience, saving a little money, and then, some time between 35 and 45, after I'd been established, I would begin building my own firm. But then, it occurred to me, that I may not have the opportunity then. They tell college athletes thinking about entering the draft that it's better to come out too early than too late. If I had to guess, I'd say this would ring true for most professions- if you "bite off more than you can chew" and take a job you're not ready for, you can always back up, and get more experience and try again, but if you turn down a job opportunity in order to wait and get more experience, the job opportunity may never present itself again...so you should take it when it's available, even if you're not quite ready.
I had no obligations- no wife, no children, no mortgage. If I started up a practice, and it failed, I could always take the lessons I learned with me to my next job (and running the business would allow me to avoid a gap on my resume until the market picked up). I was completely free to fall face first onto cold pavement- not that I thought I would, just that in the event I did, I had no one else depending on my success, or lack thereof. In other words, if starting a firm was my dream, why not start at 25, instead of 35, 40, or 45?
Starting up my own business was hard- starting any business is, at least if you're going to try and be successful. Add in the fact that I had literally no experience, and, well, at times it was downright scary, not to mention depressing (honestly, the most difficult part of my job is watching friends of mine with careers, thinking that I should be where they are). I don't know how many friends, family members, and colleagues, somewhat congratulatorily, said, "That's tough," or, "That's ballsy", or "Aren't you scared you're going to mess something up?", or "I don't know how you can do it." To be quite honest, for the longest time, I didn't know how to respond. It wasn't because I didn't have an answer, it was because, to some extent, I knew they were right. I knew I might fail.
I just kept telling myself I wouldn't. I'd look back on my life- being among the first in my family to graduate college, being the first in my family to complete graduate school, and the only person in my family to have a doctorate degree, and tell myself that if I can accomplish those things, I can succeed in this, too. I'd think about high school, and being too small to play football, but sticking with it every day, willing myself onto the field. I remember 1999, my junior year of high school, and how I knew if our team put in the work, we could be state champions; how much it stung when we lost, in the state championship game- by one touchdown. Nothing hurts more than to try your very best at something, and come up short, and no matter how much you question what you would've or wouldn't have done differently, you keep answering yourself, "Nothing. I did my best. I just failed. If I had it back, I'd have done it exactly the same- and failed nonetheless."
I remember stopping by a McDonald's on the way home from the game. Eating my fries, I noticed a poster on the wall of Michael Jordan. It was one of those holographs where you look at it from one side and you see Jordan's face, and you look at it from the other, and you see what's probably his most famous quote. Paraphrasing, he said, "I have failed....and that is why I succeed."
The next year, we tried even harder- and won. 1st in the state, 3rd in the entire midwest, 14th in the nation. I kept reminding myself, in my first months of law practice, of past successes in my life- how almost every one of them was a long term achievement that took years to materialize; how every success stemmed from a previous risk- and failure.
Recently, I attended a Christmas Party where I ran into a friend from school, and she asked what having my own practice was like. I really don't know why, but I immediately replied, "It's like Groundhog Day." She thought I meant that every day was like wanting to electrocute myself in the bathtub; so I elaborated- in part defending my answer to her, and in part, defending it to myself.
I explained that some mornings you're tired, and want to sleep in. Some mornings you hate your job. Some mornings you want to punch Ned in the face. Some mornings you hate your life and wish you could just start over. But every night, you go to bed, and wake up the next morning exactly as the day before. Every day is a new day to learn to master something- an opportunity. Someone once asked Harold Ramis how long he thought Phil Connors was stuck in the time warp. Ramis replied that it'd take at least 10 years to learn to master all of those things- piano, ice sculpting, etc. But that's solo practice. Every day is like Groundhog Day. Every day is a repetitive, unpleasant situation. Every day you deal with rich people and scum bags. Every day you deal with other jerk attorneys. It becomes extremely monotonous and stressful, and the first few years, it doesn't even pay that well.
But the only way you break out of it, is to live in the moment, to just keep repeating everything- until you get it perfect; to keep living and reliving every day, until you get it perfect. Jordan practiced his shots until he got them perfect. My team practiced plays until we all knew exactly what everyone else was doing, where everyone else would be on the field, what everyone else was thinking- until we were perfect. That's Groundhog Day- and law practice. Some days you don't want to get up, and some days you want to punch somebody in the face. But you can't just go through the motions. You have to practice every day, until you get it perfect.
Happy Groundhog Day!
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