I’m sure a fair number of readers have reached the conclusion I need therapy. Well, I wasn’t able to go all the way, largely out of fear somebody’d tell me I had to give up whiskey in the process. But I have, as a result of his placement in the Rudius family, lucked into an opportunity to talk at length with a great psychologist and an even better writer, Dr. Rob, the mind behind Shrinktalk.
I touch on a lot of psychological issues in my work, but I’m just a layman – unable, incapable of speaking to the nuts and bolts of the neuroses, manias and paranoias that pop up in it. Dr. Rob can can lay out their clinical underpinnings, putting it in a totally different light. A couple days ago we got to talking about the epidemic of unhappiness among professionals and office workers, in the process drilling our discussion down to three root causes of the problem – Pointlessness, Boredom and Exhaustion. The first is on Shrinktalk today. Read it. Ask him a question. I can draw funny, anecdotal pictures of what ails a lot of us. He can tell you the core reason it does, which might surprise you.
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Wow, PL. I’m a first year law student and these two articles have pretty much disillusioned me with my choice of career since childhood.
PL: They shouldn’t. They should give you information with which to make smarter decisions than some people do going forward.
I guess my response to that would be, have you ever met a lawyer who was genuinely happy in your travels? Most of your stories seem to focus on the general depression of lawyers.
PL: Yes. I’ve been happy at it sometimes. When I’m doing what interests me I like law. When I’m not I don’t like it, and I don’t like doing what doesn’t interest me. I phone in anything that bores me. Sounds a bit spoiled, I know, but it’s just the way my mind works. I can’t do anything that isn’t stimulating and very little of law – in its monetized form – is stimulating.