I further discovered over time, that committing more of myself to personal pursuits not only improved my mental health but served to revive my enthusiasm for advancing my legal education. It may sound comical, but something as simple as organizing the beads by color and type has done more to quell my anxiety than any prescription pill or breathing technique. Additionally, I also developed an interest in jewelry making. For me, hobbies consisted of rekindling my passion for a small side-business I conducted prior to law school, which consisted of baking and intricately decorated sugar cookies. To name a few, Jacob, my partner in school-run negotiation competitions, spoke with me about his experimentation with sourdough bread, while one of my cousins dedicated her extra time to cultivating and selling succulent plants. Friends both inside and outside of law school assisted in inspiring me to tackle pursuits I no longer felt I had the bandwidth to accomplish. It became obvious to me “something had to give” to combat my worsening mental health and to ensure this decline in my productivity would not carry over into my 2L year.Ĭhange started slowly, and somewhat painstakingly, with devoting a period of time out of my day to explore hobbies that made me feel personally fulfilled. While I spent much of my 1L year longing for more “me-time,” when this wish ultimately came to be, it instead resulted in increased alcohol consumption and mindless scrolling of social media.
However, motivation had made itself scarce, despite my best efforts to stay focused on course work, externship assignments, and be productive in my downtime.
#Pursuit of happiness stream free
Summer, a single class, and restricted courtroom activity offered more free time, but quarantine guidelines limited any activities or outlets to devote this time to. Perhaps my, and many others’ position, is best voiced by the Atlanta hip-hop duo, Outkast, who prophetically crooned that “you can plan a pretty picnic, but you can’t predict the weather.” However, even my well-laid-out plans could not combat the mental hardships that accompanied prolonged isolation and a future rife with uncertainty.
Maybe I was being naïve or was simply hoping for the best in a situation that had made reliable predictions an impossibility. I assumed any remote work I received from the firm, on top of the Legal Professions class I had registered for, would continue to keep me engaged until some sense of normalcy had returned to the world. I was incredibly grateful to still have an externship opportunity, considering many institutions had since rescinded their offers to other students. Summer courses were predictably held over Zoom and the externship I had secured at a firm in Downtown Los Angeles was made remote.
That being said, by the time 1L exams were coming to an end, it was becoming increasingly clear that the spread of COVID-19, was not. However, with every classmate, school, and person in general being thrust into the same exceptional crisis, I found it more constructive to “ride out the theoretical storm” and use my time at home to focus on my coursework rather than dwell on what I could not change. I also worried about my mother and brother, both of whom have been sent to the hospital over a more routine virus due to being diabetics. I missed my friends and the camaraderie we shared in working through our first year of law school and the preferred learning experience of in-person education. This is not to say that implications and uneasiness surrounding such an unprecedented spread of illness had no impact on my psyche and personal circumstances. The challenges of law school in addition to the trepidation of exams had already compelled me to adopt a somewhat “reclusive” lifestyle, one that mirrored much of the characteristics of mandatory quarantine procedures. As a 1L months away from completing my first year of law school, I had long ago bid farewell to my once active social life, along with any opportunity to exercise some spontaneity.
When COVID-19 caused my law school campus to shut its doors, I did not grasp, or perhaps, fully absorb, the effects the burgeoning pandemic would have on myself, my classmates, and the others around me.