You’re Not a Rat, So Don’t Act Like One

You know the little guy on the wheel who races and races and races, never to advance an inch? Or the other little white rat who presses the peddle time after time after time, each press giving him a tiny shot of nicotine?

We all feel superior, of course, to the caged white rats repeatedly doing the same futile things in exchange for laughable “rewards”, but maybe we shouldn’t laugh so hard.

A 2016 study carried out by the American Bar Association found that 28 percent of lawyers suffered from depression, 19 percent had severe anxiety, and 11.4 percent had had suicidal thoughts in the previous year.

Amongst law students, 25 percent were at risk for alcoholism, 17 percent suffered from depression, and 37 percent reported mild to severe anxiety. They were willing to self-report anonymously, but not with their name attached, because “They are terrified of somebody finding out that they have a problem, which will result in their not being admitted to the bar or not being able to get a job.”

In a 2016 study (https://journals.lww.com/journaladdictionmedicine/Fulltext/2016/02000/The_Prevalence_of_Substance_Use_and_Other_Mental.8.aspx) jointly supported by the American Bar Association and the Betty Ford Foundation, (The Prevalence of Substance Use and Other Mental Health Concerns Among American Attorneys, Krill, Patrick R. JD, LLM; Johnson, Ryan MA; Albert, Linda MSSW) the researchers found that 20.6% screened positive for hazardous, harmful, and potentially dependent drinking, with 28% experiencing symptoms of depression, 19% experiencing symptoms of anxiety, and 23% experiencing symptoms of stress.

Years ago, one of my articling students told me about her group of young married couples who chummed together through law school and into their articling year. At the outset, none were smokers, by the end, all of them were chain-smokers. Stress.

We lawyers are a bad bunch, without doubt, but none of the rest of you should feel too superior. One study actually shows worse issues in the construction industry (https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/mental-health-wellness/articles/2022/deconstructing-stigma-what-attorneys-can-learn-prevalence-mental-health-substance-abuse-issues-construction-industry/) . Nobody, no profession, no trade is immune from the gut-wrenching, anxiety-driven, substance-using habits described in these studies.

Back to the rats. Those poor little guys don’t know any different, and they don’t have options. But we do.

We still live in a free society, and nobody has a gun to our heads. Almost all of our silver chains are self-made, self-imposed, and self-maintained. If you live in fear of the managing partner coming down the hall at the end of every month to lay a beating on you for missing your billing numbers by fifty dollars, you do have an option.

Unless you truly believe that you are otherwise unemployable, there are other firms out there, and you could work for yourself, or even try something else. Remember my story about my friend who gave up being a hard-assed, hard-drinking, uptight, ulcer-ridden litigator to become a joyous and fulfilled craft baker? It’s a true story.

This is not to say that all lawyers should become bakers or everyone in the construction trades should get a job at the grocery store. But neither should any of us submit to being galley slaves, especially given that each of us has some Gifting which is somewhere in high demand. The trick is to find the Gifting and find the clients with the Needs.

The craftsperson at their workbench, the artist at her easel, the musician in his studio, the mediator steering two lumbering and angry parties into a safe and reasonable harbour, all these people have found their Giftings and found the clients with the Needs which match the Giftings. And they don’t feel like rats on a wheel. On the contrary, they love what they do.

None of us need to be a caged rat. Do we need to talk?