Time is of the essence. Really? That is what we learn in law school and even more so in the practice of law. Everything has a deadline. There are schedules we must follow. Statutes of limitations, notices of appeal, deadlines for answers. Missing one deadline can be catastrophic. I know because 35 years ago I missed filed a Notice of Appeal on the 31st day, thinking a holiday had given me an extra day.
Even more irritating, we have to keep track of our time. Capturing “billable hours” down to 1/10th of an hour. I have never worked for a large firm. In fact I have been a sole practitioner for most of my career, so I have not had to produce “billable hours.” I could not imagine the pressure that young associates are under, trying to save their positions and work their way up to partner status.
But time is also the nemesis of the anxious, the depressed and the addicted. Isn’t the mantra of those in recovery, “One day at a time?” We tend to dwell on the past. We cannot let go of our mistakes, the what ifs, that “eat our brain. When we have lost someone close to us, the what ifs are magnified to the point where our guilt consumes us. We also look back at mistakes we have made and place the blame on others. We have trouble just putting the past behind us and moving forward. We try to fix the past, but we cannot.
Luke suffered a major setback in December 2013 because of a one day error. In September 2013 he received notice that he has passed the Florida Bar Exam. He had prepared his application to take the Kentucky Bar Exam in February 2014. He was also finishing his MBA at Sullivan University in December. I was out of town when the application was due. When I got back he told me he had not clicked the send button and as a result he was not eligible for the February Bar Exam. That led to a winter of depression and bad choices for him.
The other side of it is focusing too much on the future. Luke talked frequently of Florida. He was planning to move there and practice there. But as one person close to him told me, he obsessed with it. Luke could not live in the present because he was too concerned with the future. He told me that one of his counselors at the VA Medical Center told him to set “weekly goals” so that he could stay focused on the day-to-day rather than the years ahead. Which brings to mind the mantra of dogs in AA, “7 days at a time.”
One of the most beneficial books I have read in the past 6 months is “A Lawyers Guide To Healing; Solutions for Addiction and Depression” by Don Carroll, J.D. Mr. Carroll devotes much of his book to the relationship between time and depression and addiction. One of his Chapters is titled, “Experiencing the Present; Learning to Let Go of Regret of the Past and fear of the Future.” He says that living in the past and the future is about trying to alter our present state because we cannot deal with what is going on around us from day to day. I will be sharing more of his wisdom in the future, but I highly recommend his book for all attorneys to help them gain a new perspective on their life and practice.
The bottom line is in order to be happy we must be Masters of Time, we cannot allow Time to be our Master.
The Trials of Luke 