Decisive Indecision

It's a common state of the human condition, I have found, that no one is perpetually happy. I don't know anyone whose life is a steady upward curve, who is so pleased with their current state of affairs that they wouldn't change a thing. In my experience, most people have one or two things they'd change about their life if they could. I've also found that the grass is indeed often greener, but that when it comes to effectuating the change we're all considering, the idea often seems easier than putting it into practice.

For myself, I've noticed a disturbing trend in this area. Whenever it comes to making a big decision in my life, to making a change that I can believe in, as Obama would put it, I turn into Hamlet murmuring to a handheld skull: "To be or not to be, that is the question." Should I stay or should I go? Unchartered waters or status quo? I usually realize that something is lacking or I need something different in my life but when it comes to figuring out whether the other side of the black curtain is going to make things better or worse, I just can't decide. And if there's one thing that makes me miserable, it's living in a gray area betwixt two worlds. I absolutely hate it. It's like my mind is split in half and I'm paralyzed by uncertainty. Terrible feeling.

Let me see if I can come up with a few examples. When it was time for me to decide what to do with my life in my early twenties, post-college, I couldn't decide which direction to go. They say it's nice having options, but at the time, it was absolutely maddening. Half of me wanted to volunteer somewhere, maybe join the Peace Corps, and live a simple life, one that was consistent with my values and political beliefs at the time. The other half of me wanted none of that meager living and the certain poverty that would come later. That part of me wanted to travel, wanted financial freedom, wanted a serious career that would justify and reward the hard work I had put into my education for 18 years.

So what did I do? Well, first off, I delayed the decision for a couple of years so I could think it through. I took two years off, backpacked in Europe, and got a little taste of that meager living that I was seriously considering. I talked about my future with my cousins, uncles, and with my grandmother in Italy, who had seen a few things. Some of them hadn't pursued an education and were struggling to make ends meet. It's not pretty, they said. You can't help anyone before you help yourself, they said.

When I got back to the States, I picked up my old summer job in the produce department of a nearby supermarket and another job covering high school sports for a local newspaper. (Journalism was another career I was contemplating.) The supermarket job was for money. The newspaper job, which paid almost nothing, was for love. I got to write. They gave me a sophisticated film camera, which I barely knew how to use, and let me take pictures for the stories I was covering. They even used some of the photos I took. Two of my favorites were one I took of a baseball player for a local semi-pro team who was arguing with an umpire after a called third strike. I caught him mid-rant, with his mouth open. It came out great, though it would have been better with a zoom lens. The second one was a picture I took of a bunch of Special Olympian athletes splashing in a sprinkler during a very hot summer day on the track field at the University of New Hampshire. That one they blew up and used to cover the entire top half of the sports page in the next edition. I remember how much pride I felt when I saw my name underneath the picture. "I took that and I barely knew what I was doing. Holy shit. And they USED it!" I felt the same pride when I wrote about local sporting events and saw my name on the by-line. At first, I wrote them like stories, with way too much descriptive language. The editor made me tone them down. "This is a newspaper," he said, "not a fiction class. You need to simplify things into small, digestible pieces for people to read."

I think back to that time sometimes. It was a transition period, and like I said, I felt miserable a lot of the time because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life professionally. I felt like the newspaper job was just a placeholder, something to make me not feel like a total loser because I had graduated college and was stocking peppers and cantaloupes in a supermarket. But now I wonder what have happened if I had listened to myself a bit more, had a little bit more confidence in myself, and gave other potential vocations a fighting chance. Because I really enjoyed the writing. I didn't take the photography part seriously because I'd never done it before; in fact, I'd never shown the slightest interest in cameras or taking pictures. The camera was too big and too damn complicated to learn. I'd gotten lucky with a couple of shots they'd decided to use. What I cared about was the articles I wrote. What would have happened if I'd tried to become a permanent employee on the newspaper and worked my way up? Or moved to something bigger later, something digital, once that world took off? I wasn't short of opinions, that's for sure. During this period I wrote a satirical piece to another newspaper when the first Gulf War started in 1991. It was a blog, essentially. I cast myself as a lonely bachelor who opposed the war when everyone in the world was supporting it. I still have it in a plastic folder, along with every newspaper article I wrote, including in college, and every picture I took. I'm glad I saved them.

Life is a one way street. Not too original, but it's one of my favorite sayings, taught to me by my father. (Dad never was too elaborate in his provision of advice, but I've learned that his simple nuggets often were more profound than three hours of heavy counseling by my mother.) Life is a one way street means that there's no looking back; we have to live with the decisions we make. Given the sad state of affairs of the newspaper business, I could just as easily be living in a cardboard box now as have my own nationally-syndicated editorial page. As the Tootsie Roll owl once said, "The world may never know."

I bring this up because lately I have been contemplating some changes por mi vida, in two areas: (i) what I want to do with the second half of my life work-wise, and (ii) where I want to live. For some time, I've had the stirrings of change deep in my colon about my day job. It's not that I don't like being a lawyer -- it's actually fine a lot of the time. It's challenging, I get to do some writing, albeit of the watered down, non-creative variety, and I'm well paid, which allows me to do other things that I enjoy. But damn, I've been in this rut for awhile now. I don't feel inspired at all. I don't feel like where I'm at is where I want to be. And I've never loved being a lawyer so much that I want to go to bar association meetings, jerk off with other lawyers about cutting edge aspects of the practice, schmooze and make contacts, blah, blah, blah. I don't read about Oliver Wendell Holmes in my spare time. I don't even like watching lawyer shows on television. Fuck all of that. When I have free time, I can think of 1000 other things I'd rather be doing than anything law related. Same for getting on the board of some stupid ass company or non-profit so I can put it on the firm website and hassle my friends and colleagues for donations every fucking year. That's what lawyers are supposed to do though. Shake the tree. EMBRACE the law. CLIMB the ladder to the glory of partnership, more money, and beyond (which is what, exactly? A bigger house?). I've got be honest. Time is the only truly limited quantity in this world, and I'll be damned if I'm going to expend any (or very much) of mine on law-related activities outside of work. I like the law, I'm good enough at it to make a living, but I'm not PASSIONATE about it like some people. I don't eat and breathe the shit. It's the last thing I want to think about when I get home. I'd rather be doing this, working on my other hobbies, or watching a good movie.

Not to mention that the profession is stressful as hell, particularly when I'm swamped with work and being reamed by demanding clients. It's also full of conflict, arguing with pricks on a daily basis (sometimes even within my own firm), and basically deciding who is going to get what pile of money at the end of the day. And even when you succeed, they still bitch about the bill. As if it was easy to get them their fucking money. As if I found it ENJOYABLE. The law can be interesting and challenging, but it can also be repetitive and dull. The law doesn't keep me warm at night. And as far as loyalty at my firm goes, well, that only extends as far as the "value" I add to the firm. That's the new catchphrase: "value added." Clients want value, so now we're all forced to dance for our dinner and justify our existence, both within and without the firm. In a lean economy, we're also forced to schmooze within the firm, so we can pry out of the bony hands of nervous partners some of the work they've been hoarding for two years for fear of getting shit-canned themselves. All these rainmakers who make the big bucks, who were supposed to be the business generators, well, they've made a lot less rain in the past 3 years. Now we're all thirsty.

Sound fun to you? I go through phases when I think stacking peppers and cantaloupes wasn't so damn bad after all. By now I could be managing a store for $100,000 a year, have weekends off, and live a more sane life. Or be in upper management and have everyone shit themselves when I come sauntering in to run my finger across the top of the cash register checking for dust.

Daydreams are nice, but reality eventually sets in. The bills come. A trip to Vail is offered. A new camera lens hits the market. And I want, want, want. I like new things, new experiences, seeing new places. Unfortunately, at the age of 41, I have trapped myself in a lifestyle, the very quicksand that those "Why Go to Law School" books I read before I went to law school said I would face sometime down the road, right around my midlife crisis. I'm nothing if not punctual.

There are thousands of unhappy lawyers out there. (Poor poor us.) Many of them, apparently like me, stay in the profession because of the money. It's easy if you never had something to not miss it. It's harder to go backwards to not having when you once had. This mix of want and need and dreaming and malaise has created the same uncertainty and stuckness I experienced twenty years ago. I have a split mind once again, which I can barely tolerate. What to do, what to do? Well, for the past three years or so, I've kind of been doing the same thing I did when this happened before: I'm waiting until an answer becomes more clear in my mind. I'm waiting until the clouds part. My answer the last time was to take the Road More Traveled and go to law school. I can criticize that decision now, but in the grand scheme of things, I probably would do it again. I'm risk averse when it comes to money and financial security and that hasn't changed. It's kind of why I'm stuck now. For all my bitching, I'm fairly certain I won't be eating cat food when I'm 70. But what if I don't make it to 70? I have to acknowledge the thing inside me that is ready for a change, some kind of change in my career, some kind of professional inspiration. We shall see where it leads.

The second big area of indecision for me at the moment is where to live. I have lived in New York City for the past 18 years. I've lived in some decent places, like where I am now. I have also lived in some tiny, run-down apartments that would make you cringe. Apartments that were so old, the paint was crusted over from 2000 landlord slatherings and the shower tiles were buckling from neglect. Apartments where the kitchen could only be called a kitchen because it had a refrigerator and a stove in it. Apartments with impossibly thin walls and ceilings where I could hear my neighbors yelling, fucking, and playing shitty music at all hours of the day. Basically, I have lived in a hotel for nearly half of my life. (More than that if you count my college years.) Why have I done it? Why, to be in New York, of course! Those of you who have never lived here, who have only visited, won't understand this, but outside of Paris, New York is the only city in the world that could make a person want to endure this kind of bullshit -- the cramped quarters, the noise, the stink in the summer -- just to live here. And I have wanted to live here. I have explained why before and won't belabor it now. The energy, the choices in food, the mix of people, the random activities within arm's reach, the feeling I get just by being here, all of these things, just to name a few, make New York special and addictive. Not everyone wants or enjoys the city life, of course, but for those like me who do, it's incredibly hard to think of living anywhere else.

But lately, that's exactly what I've been doing: thinking of living somewhere else. This feeling, too, has been gestating awhile, though not for as long as the one about my job. I'm not sure of its origin. Many of my friends have left New York for the suburbs. Most of them did it for their families, because they have young kids. Some friends have departed because they lost their jobs or they see a better opportunity somewhere else, in another part of the country. For myself, lately I've been getting sicker of the bullshit and craving another experience, some extended peace and quiet. My last three trips, besides to Italy for my grandmother's funeral, have been to Utah, Burlington, and Vail, all distinctly nature-oriented. I got to hike and ski. I got to breathe clean air. I got to hear the sounds of silence. It was beautiful. I have been craving the outdoors for some reason, and I am NOT the outdoorsy type, far from it. But it's like something in me is telling me, okay, you've been eating red meat for awhile, it's time for some vegetables, or you're going to get sick. The problem is, I'm not a vegan either. If I jump to the country and hate it, then what? I'm stuck in a fucking house with nowhere to go unless I plant my ass in a car. That's one thing I've loved about New York, you can walk anywhere at any time and get home easily. You are always minutes from home, no vehicle necessary. Not so in the burbs.

On the other side of it, I confess that I'm tired of city living in many ways. I'm tired of hearing my neighbors in particular. Just once I'd like to go to my own bed with 100% certainty that I'm not going to hear ANYTHING all night until I decide to wake up. That never happens when you live in the city. Some douche might decide to slam his drawer or use his treadmill at 1 a.m. Tough titties, you'd better have some good earplugs or a ton of patience. I am distinctly lacking in the latter. I'd also like some SPACE for my shit for a change. I'd like to buy a ginormous 100-pack of Charmin's, the kind that will last me and my ass until 2012, and not worry about where the fuck I'm going to put it. I'd like a real home office, an entire room devoted to nothing but my computer, printer, and ergonomic chair. I'd like more walls to hang my pictures. I'd like a garage that I don't have to rent. Maybe one that will fit TWO cars. Or a ping-pong table!

I think I'm saying... sigh... that maybe, possibly, implicitly, kind of, perhaps I'd consider the idea of... living. in. a house. Ugh. I've never had one of my own before. I swore I'd never own one. To much work and not my speed. So why now? Well, a big reason for staying in the city -- meeting and having a life with someone -- is now off the table, thanks to Adrienne and where I think we're going. And apartment living with two people -- which we are about to undertake -- is a bit crampy. I could barely stand it here by myself. We'll see how it goes, but I have a feeling we're going to need more room at some point. And truth be told, house living sounds and feels a lot less lousy with her around to share it with. (And Jer too, of course. He can't talk, but I think he'd like a nice yard to shit in every once in awhile, sans leash.) Not a ringing endorsement, I know, but I need to ease into this. We'd be closer to the mountains, so I could ski more. Getting to my parents' house on holidays, etc. would not induce an embolism. I think it would be less stressful in a lot of ways. There's a lot of upside.

I would definitely miss the city though, I love Williamsburg so much. Plus, I think of myself as a city person, not a Dockers-wearing suburbanite. God, even the thought of that makes me want to vomit. I don't know what I'm going to do. If I get a house, it also probably means I won't ever stop being a lawyer either, and any such plans are on hold until retirement. I've done a little surfing to see what you get for your money in the environs of New York City and it ain't pretty. Let's just say it's not inspiring me very much, and I don't have the bank to afford the kinds of places that DO inspire me.

So, to sum up: two things I'm thinking about changing in my life. Both involve contradictory feelings in their own right, and both are in opposition to each other financially. Short of me suddenly acquiring the power to teleport, or winning the lottery, something's got to give.

I should probably think about this some more.