comparing notes

I hang out with a lot of lawyers, but almost all of them are coworkers. I rarely spend time with groups of lawyers who are at other companies or law firms. I did that yesterday for the first time in a long time, and listening to the amount of discontent (or at least the desire to appear discontent) expressed by this group of law firm lawyers was both depressing and uplifting. Depressing because I know some of these people, they were my law school classmates, and it's sad to see them feeling trapped and dissatisfied with how things have turned out so far, and uplifting because it really is good to keep a sense of perspective and to see the life I've avoided living.