A Year From Now

When I was a young associate and facing tough times, like losing out on a case I wanted to work on, or having a partner hit me with a broomstick, I’d try to take the long approach, and ask myself if any of this will matter in a year. Will I remember the case, or still have a mark on my arm? Probably not, and so it wasn’t worth making a big deal about. I just had to fight through, and persevere to another day.

That kind of grit is what young people are missing these days, that perspective to know that most things they get worked up about just don’t matter. As long as no one’s actually firing you, maiming you, or impregnating you (or all three at once), you can probably get through it. Eventually, it will all just be a memory, and while it might live on in your nightmares, you will survive. People have surely experienced worse. After all, we made it through medieval times — well, most of us anyway.

But that’s what makes the current situation so unnerving. It’s not just like a colleague poking you in the eye with a disposable chopstick from the takeout sushi. We don’t know if things are going to heal, if our vision will one day return to normal with retinal surgery — it might be this blurry forever. And that’s what’s scary. I don’t like the uncertainty of not knowing the next time I’m going to be able to actually scream right in someone’s face, or shame them into not using the bathroom for a week. I don’t know if there are ever again going to be vacations I can force people to cancel at the last minute just because I’m in a lousy mood. I don’t know when I’ll get to hate in person. That’s the hardest part. I don’t know have any confidence I’ll feel powerful again in a year, that my decades of hard work to get to the top will be meaningful anymore, will allow me to live the privileged, better-than-you existence I’ve grown comfortable with.

That’s what I mourn when I’m up at night arranging 3am Zoom calls. That’s what I mourn.

Hope your head’s in a better place than mine tonight. I need your head to be healthy, for twisting off once the world is back to normal. Take care of yourselves.