So it's been a while.

I've been a bad blogger. i.e., a non-blogger. And it's not that stuff isn't going on. Stuff is going on. I just ... didn't feel inspired to blog about it. Because it was the same shit, different day-type of deal.

I think I've whined, on more than one occasion, about my job as an attorney. And in the last few months or so, I've wondered if maybe this is the right career for me. I handle stress very poorly. If something has screwed up, or is in jeopardy of being screwed up, or may or may not be screwed up, I experience what I believe to be a panic-attack. A palpable pit forms in my stomach and I can't breathe or think normally because the world's about to end. (It never does. Not yet anyways.)

Not to mention the chewing out by my superiors. I can understand their predicament--they hire a peon to make their lives easier and instead of easing their burdens, this peon makes mistakes, asks questions, and does things so slowly. It'd be frustrating. And so when something goes awry or not exactly the way they'd do it, a head is bitten off, usually mine.

Which brings me to several questions:

Am I cut out to be a lawyer? Am I just too goddamn weak, sensitive, anxious to be in this high-intensity profession?

Or is it the firm? My co-workers? Should I just change firms?

Or is it the practice area? Should I change areas?

Or is it the law in general?

Then I wonder, is anyone ever really happy in their job? Or is some agony an indispensable aspect of having a career? Am I being a quitter because I want to leave a job that makes me miserable? Shouldn't I be facing and overcoming adversity, rather than running away from it? Then again, doesn't everyone have a right to be happy? Isn't life too short to spend several years proving your worth to some judgmental voice in your head that says 'no pain, no gain'?

Then I wonder, am I being too picky? There are thousands of people out there who are unemployed, who would give anything to have the job I have, let alone any job. So am I being one of those self-entitled brats who had delusions about what it meant to be a yuppie? As my mom likes to remind me, there are people who have survived concentration camps and child molestation. I don't have it so rough, she says. And truth be told, the job's not all bad, I like the substance of the work that I do, the intellectual exercise of the law -- just not the stress and ego-smashing that accompanies it.

I've contemplated seeing a career counselor about this. Or maybe reading a good career book. I'm not really sure. The only things I know are that (1) I want to be happy, and (2) I'm not happy.