Post 21, and a good way to end this string (for now), even though there could very easily be a post that says exactly the opposite of this. (Which I'll happily post if someone wants to send it to me.)

I wanted to respond to this posting from one of your readers:

Nobody is happy. The person working the horrible job that pays crap isn't happy and the person stuck at a big firm making lots of money isn't happy either. There is no middle ground.

This, and a lot of the other postings, make me sad. We all have the capacity to be happy and we should not accept anything less. We will have to make compromises, but we can all be happy if we put our minds to it. It's just a question of figuring out what will make us happy, be it a big firm job, small firm job, legal services, or not practicing law at all. My feeling is that the people who are least sympathetic to others' dreams are those who have already given up on their dreams -- i.e., I can't be happy or do what I want, so why should you? Anais Nin said something roughly along the lines that we don't see things are they are, we see them as we are. I've worked at big law firms for a few years now and have decided that it's not the life that I want and that I want my life to be a more compassionate, positive place. Because this is how I am, this is how I see the world, and it makes me hopeful and happy.