Sunday, March 20, 2011

With My Shield or On It

I still have a few days until I need to put down my seat deposit, but I'm going to order my first E & E.  I want to be finished with E & Es for all my classes before school starts.  If I have time, I'll look for hornbooks and / or high court case summaries. 

I think part of the reason I approach this with some trepidation is that I don't see this as something that I can do and still have a normal, easy life.  This is the academic equivalent of ranger school.  When the rangers send a guy to ranger school, they tell them "come back with a tab, or on a slab".  Meaning that they can succeed, or they can die.  Either outcome is fine.  Anything in-between is not.

This is a riff on the old Spartan saying of "With Your Shield or On It."  The shields the Spartans used were extremely large.  If you fled the battlefield, you left without trying to carry your heavy shield with you.  If you died on the battlefield, your comrades used your shield as a litter to bear your body home.

This is a "with my shield or on it" point.  I need to get in there and do whatever it takes to do as well as I can at this.  Everything I am doing right now is focused on that goal.

The path isn't entirely clear.  Though I've been accepted, I may not be able to borrow enough money to finish.  My business could continue to crater, in which case, I may have to drop out.  This year's class has a lot more applicants, and one can infer that this means a lot more high quality applicants.  So, class rank will be very hard to make in this cohort. 

The bottom line is that no situation is ever perfect.  You take what advantages you can.  You fight through whatever disadvantages you have to deal with.  Everybody there will have a demon or two to wrestle with.

For the first time, I'm in school for a reason bigger than just myself.  I sincerely am worried about my ability to provide for my son.  This is a way to do something better for him.

So, at this point, it's full steam ahead.  If something trips me up down the road, I'll deal with it then.  I have no illusions.  At the end of this whole thing I may come back on my shield.

The harder I work now, the more likely I'll be with it, not on it.  I'll do my best not to kill myself over things I can't help.  However, everything I can help, I will. 

I have no doubt that this entering law class has some genuine geniuses and people who were born to think in a way that leads to success in law school.  I accept that.  All I can do is try to work smarter, and at all times, to make sure I work harder. 

I may not have had to compete with anybody as formidable as them before.  However, they may not have faced anybody like me, either.

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