I was spending time with some young folks the other night. I heard a phrase which was new to me, but apparently not to the rest of the world. “C’s get degrees” has something to do with prioritizing the enjoyment of life, and physical and mental health, over stressing out to achieve high grades. Are the people who live by this adage low on ambition or high on life? I really don’t know. I suppose that it depends on your perspective.
You, who are on the road; must have a code you try to live by; and so become yourself; because the past is just a goodbye; teach your children well.
~ Graham Nash
Parents teach their children about success by reference to how things were during their productive years. To my grandparents, success was a job in the front office at the factory, rather than on the production floor. My parents hoped that their children would become professionals. I wanted my children to achieve some work/life balance.
Out here in the country where I now live, it is a good thing if your septic tank is located on a lower elevation than your house. If it is not, you need something called a macerator to grind up the poop so that it can be pumped up to your septic tank, because as we all know, shit rolls downhill.
To put this in the context of a law firm, one might note that the most senior partners are usually on the highest floor of the office building.
I recently attended a party in Toronto for my buddy Billy’s 70th birthday. It was a low-brow event at Dave & Busters, perfectly appropriate for a bunch of guys from what was, when we were young, a low-rent suburb of Montreal. Billy’s children and much beloved young grandchildren were also among the revellers.
Let’s say that you are a moderately successful lawyer and have spent a few decades toiling in the trenches and building up a respectable client base.
Dictionary[dot]com defines a “Citiot” as follows:
“a city dweller who, when visiting or vacationing in the country, is perceived as being condescending to the locals and generally ill-equipped to be in a suburban or rural setting: applied especially in upstate New York to a tourist from New York City.”
This is my very first article that is not about the legal profession – but it might as well be.
I know a recently graduated professional, finally free to make his mark on the world, and eager as hell to go out and make something of himself. It is not an easy job market out there, as we have all heard. It apparently has something to do with us evil Boomers having ruined the world, but that is a topic for another day.
I have been over-weight for a good long while. My wife, Maureen, is not shallow. She loves me exactly as I am. But she is smart, beautiful and talented, and her marketability far exceeds mine, so why take chances?
For about 15 years, I stopped eating chocolate, cake, pie, muffins, ice-cream, fudge, etc., etc., but I substituted bread, goat cheese, nut butter, and organic honey, and kept gaining weight.
I pay my bills quickly. It is my way of telling the people with whom I deal that I value their services. I want my suppliers to remember that I am the guy who pays them the same day that I receive their invoice. I figure that there will be days in January when the furnace stops furnacing, or in July when the air conditioner stops conditioning. When something like that happens and they can only get to one more customer that day, maybe they will choose me over that other guy who only pays them after the third follow-up call. (Of course, this general principle does not apply to people like Bell Canada or Rogers who I pay on time, but not early, because they don’t value me, so I don’t value them. If Air Canada did not demand the ticket price in advance, I would never ever pay them.)
For smart people, when it comes to getting paid, lawyers can be stupid.