At the bottom of one of my storage containers is an LSAT prep book that used to hold the coveted spot on the corner of my desk. I had been assured my whole life that I was going to make a great lawyer. I was argumentative, detail-oriented, and academically motivated. I completed feats that would distinguish me from other students so that once my application met the tables of the top law schools I would surely be admitted. I was going to be a lawyer, it was what I was destined to do.

I became the vice president of a large organization, joined service groups, volunteered at the immigration center, studied two languages, and joined the honors program; all while maintaining my 4.0 GPA. When I finally left on my exchange to complete an internship in Spain, it felt like a brief intermission to the rigor and structure of my life in the States.

When I got to Madrid, life could not have been more different. In the office, my coworkers spoke seriously in English and the moment the 2:00 lunch hour hit, Spanish would flow and conversations about family and deepest wishes and desires would commence. When the work day ended, work computers stayed on desks, abandoned by employees returning to their homes. When they invited me out for drinks, we would finish bottles of wine with camaraderie and share bashful stories of youth and life. I was in disbelief at the familial environment that was alive in the office. I spoke to my internship supervisor about my disbelief in the different work culture I was witnessing and he said to me:

“People here, they work to live, not live to work.”

And when I walked through the streets in the evenings, every restaurant and cafe was full of these living people. Life erupted around me and work was set down. Children played in plazas while parents drank wine and laughed, and their roars reverberated through my ears. A life where I was destined to work eighty hours a week in an office was starting to sound not like a life at all. In these streets, I did not care about my leadership positions, maintaining a 4.0 GPA, or law school at all because belonging in an environment where people pushed themselves to their limits felt silly, and like something I could not possibly want for myself anymore.

Why is it that on the American college campus, overdoing it is so valued? It feels like we are in near-constant competition with each other over everything. Never doing enough, or at least not of the right thing, and often doing it for a career that we care more about the prestige of having  than actually working. We slave away building a resume that will stand out among other applications so that we can work ourselves to death.

Ultimately, this is not to say the legal profession is unimportant, but rather to illuminate just how consumed life becomes by a job that demands its every waking moment. I have learned to value every second of my life and I refuse to spend another of it doing something that pulls me further from the streets of laughter. The world, to me, seems much too wide to spend eighty hours a week behind a desk in an office. There are too many cities to see, and too many people to meet and they are waiting for me, just as they are waiting for you. Happiness waits on every street corner, not on the corner of your desk. Therefore, I will choose a life filled to the brim with joy over one overpowered by the prestige of law every day. 

I implore you to question the life path you're on and ask; is this what you really want?

Written by Madison Kalina, Photography: Emma Trueba, Social Media: Madelyn Jordan, Videography: Abby Maltese