Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Stripping away the inessential

In her much-discussed Commencement address at Harvard this June, J.K. Rowling submitted that a mere seven years after her own college graduation, she was the biggest failure she knew. She was jobless, a lone parent, and "as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless." While she was careful not to glamorize her poverty, she maintained nonetheless that her failure had benefited her by stripping away the inessential. She stopped trying to be what other people wanted her to be, and she began, in earnest, the only work that mattered to her.

Tomorrow I will begin what I hope will be my last meeting ever with the California state bar examiners. After two long days, the third day is a test as much of my endurance as it is of my legal knowledge. This entire exam, in a sense, has been a stripping away of the inessential. No more fretting, no more wondering - nothing but me and my opportunity to show just how much I want it.

One day more.

2 comments:

Jenski said...

SO close. Good luck with the last day!

I look forward to you becoming a member of the outside world again. :)

Sarah K. said...

Are you done????? I've been thinking about you so much this week! I hope you're feeling relieved!