Personal Ecology
by Chakwin

One of the great lessons that Western culture has learned in recent times is the lesson of ecology. In the earlier times of our society, and still in many parts of the world, there's a kind of magical belief in nature as an infinitely renewable resource. If you take all the giant tuna out of the sea or all the tigers out of the land, more will somehow appear. How? From where? Like Tom Lehrer's Werner von Braun, mankind responded "That's not my problem." We -- or at least some of us -- have finally learned the lesson, a little late for a lot of our fellow creatures, but better late than never.

These essays aren't about passenger pigeons and aurochs, though, they're about keeping us as lawyers in touch with that which is alive and sustaining. So where's the connection?

Our work as lawyers is all about the concerns of others. We make and tend the connections- - between individuals, between individuals and institutions, or between institutions -- defined by the legal system. People and institutions are complicated, as are the relationships and the issues that arise from them. Answering the questions posed by these relationships and issues is hard and sometimes draining work.

The clients faced with these questions often find them terrifying. The answers can control whether they get to keep their jobs, their property, their children, their freedom, even their lives. The clients depend on us. Often urgently. And not always in ways that are easy to take.

Then there are those around us. If we're in big firms, we run into institutional constraints: insatiable demands for billable and unbillable time, Dilbertian policies, group politics. Smaller practices offer an immediate look at fundamentals. Can I do everything I need to when it needs to be done? Will I make enough money to keep the doors open this month? Is there a bomb ticking somewhere?

And what about after work (or should I say outside of the office)? There are all those other people who are in our lives. Spouses, children, lovers, parents, friends, relatives, neighbors, the list goes on and on. They all want things from us. Some of them even want attention. What is to be done?

Leaving mechanical solutions for another time, let's look at the human issues. By the time you've spent a (too-long) day trying to create good-enough solutions to the problems of not-always-grateful others out of not-always-accurate-information with not-always-sufficient resources and the "assistance" of not-always-helpful others, you're likely to feel a bit depleted. You then go to whatever home is. You may well find a spouse starved for adult conversation, children with quarrels that need to be untangled and homework to be decoded, and, oh yes, that briefcase full of stuff that you couldn't get to at the office.

Tomorrow's forecast? More of the same. Any problem with this?

Well, yes. It is a road map to disaster. If this is your life, you are serving others without maintaining or rebuilding yourself. If you are sufficiently strong-willed or motivated, you may last a while, but burnout is inevitable. Even if you hold out a little longer with some self-medication -- a few drinks or a few pharmaceuticals (legal or not) to help you unwind -- this won't change the outcome, at best it will dull the pain on the way to it.

But it's hard to get off that treadmill. The clients need your work. Your bills need the money. Your loved ones need your attention. You need...

You need to build some kind of self-care and self-renewal into your life so that you don't wind up washed up on the legal shores, perhaps with a substance abuse problem to keep you company. There are lots of ways to do this, but here's a way to start.

First, create a time for yourself and yourself alone. Make it inviolate and make it regular. Even if all you can start with is half an hour on each weekend day, create that time and guard it. Don't work or think about work during that time. Don't address the needs of others during that time. This is time for you. Use it to do something you like that has no connection with your other responsibilities. It can be woodworking, shooting hoops, running, swimming, watching birds, listening to Mahler, looking for comets, even soaking in a bathtub. The only rules are that it cannot be work-related and that it has to be something that you find actively absorbing (no mind-candy like sitcoms or airport novels).

Second, find some activity to keep you connected with your body. We work so intensely with our minds, and so often under such pressure, that the body gets left behind, poorly (though often abundantly) fed and stuck with the twin difficulties of inactivity and stress. Even a little physical activity can let the stresses and cobwebs out of the system. Are you too busy to walk for 15 minutes every other day? I doubt it.

Third, free your mind from the tyranny of your thoughts. The ideal way to do this is to take up meditation. If you can't find an organization that teaches it, log on to Amazon.com or go to your local bookstore and get "A Path With Heart" by Jack Kornfield. Meditation is non-denominational and non-religious. It is a technique for disconnecting ourselves from the ever-present chatter of our ongoing thoughts and self-talk so that we can get, and stay, in touch with our real selves, below the noise layer.

These are the first steps in breaking the cycle of stress and depletion that can otherwise cause havoc in your professional and personal life. They will not make the clients less importunate, your colleagues less difficult, the bills lower, or your life out of the office less complicated, but they will give you new resources to deal with these challenges so that you can survive them long enough to develop the insight and mastery to meet them.

Ultimately, we are all we have. If we build and sustain ourselves, we will have an unending source of the strength and insight for which others look to us. If we don't, we're like the farmer who uses his seed corn to feed the poor in his community. That's a tragic and sentimental charity. By doing this "service" for the poor, the farmer guarantees that he will soon join their ranks. Where once they had a benefactor, now they will have a competitor. A competitor for more limited resources, since one of their providers has immolated himself. Effectiveness, like charity, begins at home. This is your problem, Werner von Braun.

CHAKWIN

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