How do you make it big as a lawyer?

Follow that sense of purpose.

All the Good Stuff about Purpose

Purpose is closely linked to happiness, research shows. People with a strong sense of purpose are physically and emotionally healthier. They live longer, relax more, and make more money.

Why? Purpose helps you focus on what matters and filter out negative information that can zap your sense of well-being. It can fill you with a sense of something greater than yourself, quieting the self-conscious part of the brain. It connects you with others, and relationships are the key to happiness and happiness is the key longer life.

missing Purpose

The problem with “purpose” is that it can sometimes feel like that high school clique you never got invited to join.

When I was in law school, I knew I loved the concept of a society ordered by the rule of law. I loved debating ideas of justice, I loved writing about it, and I loved using those loves in service of others.

But I felt like a rebel without a cause. I didn’t have a passion to free Tibet or to save the whales. I wasn’t sure I had a sense of purpose.

When you feel like you lack a sense of purpose, it can be depressing to hear that the key to success and happiness is to find your purpose. What if I don’t have one? Does that mean I’ll never find the key?

Purpose: Where It’s Hiding

With a few decades in the rear view mirror, I can say that I did have a sense of purpose. I just didn’t recognize it right away.

At first, I could only see it through a haze — feel it, maybe. But I always knew it was there. I felt it in my college course on First Amendment law, and in my law school courses on constitutional history and philosophy.

I felt it when I would sit in the law library stacks after working at my law firm, reading international law scholarship (I know, call me a party animal).

Personally, I didn’t feel it trying cases for corporate clients, but I sensed that I was gaining skills that I would cash in toward something later. Had I trusted that feeling, that could have been my sense of purpose.

Relentlessly Following the Drumbeat of Purpose

I didn’t find my Tibet until I was 46 — and honestly, I didn’t find it. It found me.

But as I look back on my career, I always knew when I was choosing to move toward purpose and when I was choosing to move away from it. It was like a drumbeat in the distance. When I made “sensible” choices, like taking a job for more money (which I didn’t have a sense of purpose for earning), the drumbeat got fainter. When I took a job that had me writing, exploring complex ideas of justice, and serving others, it got stronger.

That was my drumbeat. Yours probably sounds different.

But I bet you know the sound when you hear it.

After years of moving away from purpose, at age 35 I made one of the best decisions of my life: No matter what, I said, I would do what felt most fulfilling. I would relentlessly follow that drumbeat, no matter what my boss or my parents or my boyfriend or anyone else thought of my choices.

I left a great D.C. law firm. I moved to Arkansas. I enrolled in an LL.M. program in agricultural law. I played guitar in coffee shops. I sang in the university opera chorus. I lifted weights. I wrote. I spent my savings.

Purpose Isn’t the Answers, It’s the Questions

It took a little time before all that translated into another job. But I wrote about the law and the drumbeat got stronger. That publication led to some job offers, and when I visited West Virginia I could hear the drumbeat loud and strong.

I wrote and taught about global food production and food security and connection to the land and the costs of keeping the lights on. I called it by a fashionable name, “sustainable development.”

Then one day, the immigration clinic needed a faculty director and I was there. That’s it.

Now I teach and write about the global costs of unsustainable development, and I sit side by side with people who got caught in its claws. I connect with students who hear their drumbeat from the same direction I do, and I’m eager to show them what I know.

People ask me all the time what the answer to the immigration crisis is. I don’t know the answer. Maybe I’ll never have an answer, even for myself, let alone for the legal system.

For a while, I thought maybe that meant I still hadn’t found that sense of purpose. But as I reflected this week on the past six years, I realized that it doesn’t matter.

Because purpose isn’t having the answers. Purpose is feeling compelled, every day, to ask the questions. No matter the obstacles or the costs.

Purpose in the Rear View Mirror

From where I stand now, I can say that I was on the road to purpose all along. That road was purpose.

I wish I had trusted that sooner. Had I recognized purpose in all its disguises, I would have stayed the course more steadily. I would have focused on following the drumbeat sooner.

No regrets — I learned what I needed to know. But I would say this to anyone who wants to succeed in law and be happy in life:

Relentlessly follow your purpose.

Don’t know what your purpose is?

I bet you do.

Trust it. When given a chance, follow it.