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opinions
The Happiness Project: Are you happy now?
CASS DA RE
Editor-in-Chief
Some of you might be too young (or too old)
to remember the 2003 angsty-pop single by
Michelle Branch, titled “Are you happy now?”
Without any external provocation and without
any internal rationalization, I find the sorrowful sounds of this particular singer-songwriter
slowly seeping into my fanciful trip down
memory lane. There’s something about fall that
is uniquely sobering, it may be the changing
colours of the leaves, in their last vain attempt
to be remembered for something beautiful that
acts as a natural reminder of my own unavoidable mortality. It may be the tantalizing tease
of the early wisps of the winter chill that slowly
nip at any exposed skin by mid-October, that
force me to consider that soon the year itself
will come to an anti-climatic end under what
was once a blanket of snow, but now, thanks to
global warming, a much less romantic hardened
cast of frost, fog, and cold mud. Either way, fall
signals a time to prepare oneself for an inevitable ending; then again, that may just be me.
I may have been a squirrel in a previous life,
hot-wired to collect acorns of whimsical notions
before the drudgery of exams, and before the
end of (social) life as we know it befalls us.
Nevertheless, with Michelle Branch as the interior soundtrack to my thoughts, I find myself
in my last year of law school, and the question
that continues to echo in my mind is: are you
happy now? For those of you unacquainted with
my journalistic past, I have been Osgoode’s
self-acclaimed Happiness Guru. I have been
writing this feature piece since my first year at
Osgoode, addressing issues about health, happiness, and general well-being in a response to
the hardship of law school. Despite the many
cotton-candy-sweet columns I have penned,
make no mistake about it kids, law school is
hard. You are not, never were, and never will be
alone in that sentiment.
the yellow brick road. But there were these wise
and sage third years who said, “It gets easier”,
“It’s so much better in third year”, and “Just
wait, next year you’ll be happier.” Enter this
year, and here I am, at the top of the proverbial
totem pole, pecking order, pyramid, food chain,
or whatever hierarchal structure you would like
to envision: the last year of law school. Full of
remorse and utter disillusion, I must report that
I didn’t find the pot of easy and happy-go-lucky
gold at the end of my rainbow.
Law school was not the happiest time of my life,
despite the constant reassurances from anyone
senior in age or academic level that it would be.
For that, I can only blame myself. I spent far
too long waiting for law school to change, waiting for law school to get easier, and waiting for
law school to get better. Upon further reflection, I realize that law school doesn’t change,
and it likely never will. In the words of e. e.
cummings, “here is the deepest secret nobody
knows (here is the root of the root and the bud
of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called
life; which grows higher than soul can hope or
mind can hide)”. “It” doesn’t get easier and “It”
doesn’t get better, and no amount of time in law
school will make you happier.
What changes is you: your ability, your awareness, your experience, and your understanding.
You make your life easier by committing to
more sound choices and you, through this difficult process, get better at overcoming its inherent hurdles. Maybe if we, and everyone else
who espouses advice, stop focusing on the institution in which we are in, but rather turn the
lens inwardly and made the locus of our attention ourselves, we will actually have a fighting
chance of being happier during our time here.
The take away is this: it is easy to project our
expectations of happiness, success, and wellbeing on to others and on to institutions. It is
easier still to project our faults, our failings,
and blame on the same. Without trivializing
the institutional, social, economic, and organizational barriers that different individuals
face, and without taking a purely individualistic approach, I only wish to recognize that happiness in law school has very little to do with
law school and very much to do with the law
student. As law students, we have a responsibility, dare I say duty, to other law students to
be honest about our experiences, to give useful
advice, and to share both our tribulations and
triumphs. This may be my last vain attempt
to be remembered for something meaningful
- call me amber and maple leaf red. But this
is my call to action in the autumn of my academic career. Hopefully, at the end of your three
years here, you can answer Michelle Branch
with a resounding yes, without the angsty-pop
soundtrack in the background.
Make Your Next Step a Leap
Aside from being part of a truly international legal ?rm, you’ll bene?t from practical, hands-on
experience and exposure to various areas of practice.
Law around the world
thenortonrosefulbrightdifference.com
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