Early in my law school career, I received some career advice from an older and supposedly wiser person in the profession. This man wasn’t just a lawyer, he was a judge. And the advice he gave me was, in retrospect, terrible.
He had worked in several different legal roles in his career, in private practice and in public service on a local level. He had been a judge for about a decade when I encountered him. So what was his advice for my career?
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You may have noticed a decrease in the frequency of my posts this spring and summer. It’s been an unsettling few months for all of us. I’ve been more inclined to turn inward, and this season has felt like one for listening rather than talking.
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Today is the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day. Lately, while spending so much time at home, I’ve been thinking about the impact of our lawn and garden activities on our ecosystems. As I work in my dining room and go for walks around my neighborhood, I’ve become more aware of how many of my neighbors regularly have their lawns sprayed with synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. The homogeneously green, weed-free grass might fit a contemporary perfectionist aesthetic, but I cringe each time I see a TruGreen or LawnDoctor truck roll down the street or notice the little flags in the yards designed to alert people that it was just sprayed.
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The summer vacation season is upon us, and the weather here in East Tennessee is already getting hot and humid. Whether you’ll be lounging on the beach with a book or staying in your air-conditioned home avoiding the heat, the lazy days of summer are a great time to do a little reading. Most of the “Best Beach Reads” lists out there tend to focus on novels, but as someone who reads a lot of nonfiction, I thought it would be fun to round up some of my favorite memoirs and inspirational books that I’ve read over the past few years. Here they are, in no particular order:
Another blog I read recently asked readers what hobbies are on their bucket lists. The post got me thinking about goals and priorities. When I was in my early teens, I wrote a loooong bucket list (before bucket lists had a name) and taped it inside my bedroom closet to look at from time to time. I don’t remember everything that was on the list, but I know it was ambitious and all over the place. It included things like learning to ride horses, to play a musical instrument, to speak various languages, and living abroad. It was a lined piece of notebook paper with a dream handwritten on every line. Most of the entries were not things I’d thought about extensively, but rather things that just seemed like they’d be cool to do, or to be able to say I’d done.