One of the things that has made it darn nigh impossible for me to make a decision about law school is the fear that I may be trading in a job I hate for a future job I’ll hate even MORE.

The truth is, my current job really isn’t so bad, relatively speaking. I only have to work about 35 hours a week, I get four days off every other weekend, and if I work fast enough, I usually have the last few hours of work to myself for doing pretty much whatever I want (short of leaving). I have a decent salary and excellent medical benefits, along with a pension plan that would provide enough reasonable security for me when I retire. The people I work with are for the most part pretty decent folks, and I don’t even have to dress formally (I haven’t worn a suit in several years).

But the work itself is a mindless drudgeship, the kind where I truly have little to no impact on anything. For the most part, I simply proofread documents and perform data entry for hours at a time, until my brain gets so numb I have to take a moment to collect myself lest I should lapse into a coma.

I always thought I was meant for bigger and better things, and the thought of continuing this drudgeship for another 30 years frightens me to no end.

But what frightens me even more is giving up the security blanket I enjoy now for a career that will make this current job seem like paradise. What really, am I getting myself into here? Will I really enjoy being an attorney, or will I find it so unrewarding, so aggravating an experience, that I will yearn for the days of old when the only trial I had to endure was the daily drudgeship of entering documents into my department’s database? It’s almost a certainty that my first job (post-law school) would offer little security, inferior benefits, and a hostile work environment where I’m pressured to perform, and deal with a crushing workload. Instead of enjoying an atmosphere where nothing short of burning the place down would have any serous repercussions for me, I would instead be dealt a greater responsibilty where people’s lives may literally be in my hands, and one little screwup could cause utter catastrophe for them (and me). Do I really want to handle that kind of responsibility?

As I read the primers and study some of the materials people use for law school, my mind does seem able to grasp the legal principles easily enough, and I do enjoy performing a “lawyer like” analysis of hypotheticals. But then again, there’s some days when I just don’t bother at all with it. Even if I couldn’t get enough of playing with hypos, it only provides a glimpse into what I may be doing as a lawyer. The profession requires excellent networking skills (which I don’t have) and the ability to relate and socialize with people (which I don’t have). It would also require the ability to sift through dry legal material, while in turn writing dry legal documents in the form of motions, briefs, memos (and whatever else it s that lawyers write). Is this something I can do competently, and more importantly, is it something I could ENJOY doing?

I simply don’t know. I’m so confused and perplexed right now that my decision is literally changing by the moment. The other night I was resolved to go to law school, having firmly made up my mind, only to wake up the next morning with a sense of sheer dread that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. The $150,000 price tag alone guarantees that if my decision to go to law school turns out to be a mistake, it would be a mistake I’ll have to pay for for as long as I live.

Too bad I can’t win the lottery. Having 200Gs or so to play with would obviously make this decision a little bit more palatable. I’d lose nothing by trying, and I could always go back to my old job (based on the one year grace period I might be granted).

But alas, I must deal with reality. On the one hand I can accept a life that is secure, but boring and unfulfilling, or a life that may turn out not to be a life at all, where I end up pissing away those things I’m taking for granted now.

Or maybe there’s a third option that has still to make itself known…