Failure

I failed the bar exam.

My friend Andy says it’s narcissistic and unhelpful to focus on the failure in the situation I’m now facing. I know what he means. He’s right, I am a narcissist as well as a failure!

As bad as things are, and they are bad, there is something to be said for finally, unambiguously failing at something. Until now, I have avoided overt failure but I have also not produced anything I can really be proud of. And I haven’t wanted to admit it.

I resist saying, thinking, writing that I am dissatisfied with myself. I want to be sane, happy and well adjusted, and that requires self-acceptance and a sense of compassion for oneself. I have compassion for myself, because I have a flaw I can point at but not quite name, and it is not my fault that I have that flaw any more than it is my fault that I have my father’s nose. The reason I did not quite shine in law school is the same reason I have never been able to make a coherent whole with my writing. I have tried to define the problem, but no explanation is quite satisfactory:

I am smart but not quite smart enough.
I am unfocused
I am a disorganized thinker
I am uninspired
I don’t know enough
I don’t understand enough
I’m missing something
My brain just doesn’t make the connections it should
I am a lazy thinker
I get distracted,
I allow myself to get distracted
I am terminally confused
I avoid hard thought
I can’t complete my thoughts
I don’t want to get messy
I don’t know what I want to do.
As a thinker, I “keep my head down.”
Because I am just not good enough.
Because I just am not what I want to be. I am not brilliant.

The thing is, though, that I don’t feel like I need to be the most brilliant, the best ever. I don’t mind if I’m flawed, just as long as I’m flawed with something to show for myself. Even if what I have to show for myself shows my flaws, its okay if it is good, if it has worth, even with its flaws. And I’m not saying that just to say it. I mean it. But I’m dissatisfied. I’m not convinced that I have simply run up against my personal limits. I want to test those limits, to see if I can do better.

It wasn’t hard for me to do well in school when I was a kid. Now, when I’m faced with something hard, I don’t quite want to admit how really hard it its. If it’s hard, I might not be able to do it. I want to think it’s just like all those things that other people thought were hard but I could do without too much trouble when I was a kid. I don’t get too stressed because I assume that’s how it’s going to be. Part of me might doubt that my performance was good enough, but the more dominant part assumes that I did just fine. I walked out of the bar exam thinking it wasn’t that bad and I probably passed, even though I knew I had messed up a couple of questions.

Something similar happens with my writing. When I get to the hard part, I deny it’s hard. I ignore the problem and muddle through.

The solution to my bar exam troubles is to admit I face something hard, take the damn bar/bri course, focus, do the work, and pass the test in February.

I’m not sure of the exact solution to my writing impasse, but I know that it starts with sitting down, writing, and focusing.

It is helpful to be clear about what I want to accomplish:

I want to be a land use and environmental attorney. A good one.
I want to be a personal essayist. A published one and a good one.
I want to live in Richmond.
I want to be financially stable, own my home, take good care of myself, live well and travel.

Then, it’s helpful to think of what the next step is to accomplish any of this:

The next step toward being an attorney is to pass the bar.
The next step toward being an essayist is to write a publishable essay.
The next step toward living in Richmond is to avoid leaving Richmond.
The next step toward financial stability is getting a job.

Unfortunately, some of these steps are in conflict with each other. Particularly, getting a job and staying in Richmond could handicap my ability to study for and pass the February bar.