I got some thoughtful comments in my email this morning from a friend who reads my blog, but he too agreed with the counselor about taking the blog off the resume. Especially, he said, because of the content (maybe I'd be better off if it were asinine drivel?). Oh, and he also told me I should rework more parts of my resume but this is getting ridiculous: about a dozen people have reviewed my resume over the last several months and I've gotten heaps of advice, most of which is now contradicting. There is no moment of zen-like perfection to be achieved. The resume will never be perfect because I'll never be perfect. Firms that want cogs will not want me. And vice versa.
However, with the gaping hole in my future job prospects, this realization was extremely depressing. I have this plan to go out to California and attempt to talk to firms, but it might not work out at all. I might not be able to talk to anyone those days, untouchable independent-minded leper that I apparently am...
So with the wind fully taken out of my sails first thing this morning, I went web surfing and headed over to Salon.com, which I read regularly. I checked out the posts of the week from TableTalk, an online board I used to participate in until I decided blogging was a better forum for me.
One of the posts was a tribute to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who recently died and whose work "On Death and Dying" radically changed the medical establishment's attitude, approach, and treatment for dying people. Kubler-Ross led a life of distinction in many ways, the poster commented. Hitchhiking to Russia... Being trapped in Poland when WWII broke out and needing to be smuggled out in a coffin... And being a woman in a profession not tolerant to them, and then turning it on its ear.
The poster quoted from her autobiography:
"It is very important that you do only what you love to do. You may be poor, you may go hungry, you may live in a shabby place, but you will totally live. And at the end of your days, you will bless your life because you have done what you came here to do."
The quote bolstered me and reconnected me to the sense of purpose I had in pursuing the law, which is very easy to become detatched from as debt-loads grow and all your classmates are running around school wearing suits getting interviewed... I didn't come to law school to make money. I came to make a difference. The blog is one part of that overall plan, and I feel it would be both dishonest and counter-productive to suppress it. I guess I am slowly reconciling myself to the fact that if it precludes me from being palatable to some firms, so be it. Then that's not the right path for me.