War, Children, It's Just a Shot Away

It's kind of fun to look back at what I've written here in the past. It also has the potential to be haunting. Sometimes, I'll just sit down and read through an entire month of posts from a year or two ago. It helps to remind me of what was running through my mind at the time and why I thought some things were so important while other things were left by the wayside.

For instance, last year's Valentine's Day post was rife with my disdain for Lloyd Dobler of Say Anything fame and how he set the romantic bar impossibly high for modern men. I now recognize that post was the product of a mind that was trying to sort through relationship doubts and questions, but it does make wonder, what have I learned in this past year?

Yesterday, when I interviewed with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas, they asked me a simple question: Why did you come to law school? My answer had something to do with the fact that the law is this dynamic force that is not incredibly unlike a river in that it is constantly changing and developing. It seems to me that lawyers belong to a class of people that are constantly learning, developing, and growing. That's what I want in life. Andy told Red, "Get busy livin' or get busy dying," and that's what I'm trying to do.

By learning from what has passed and anticipating what is to come, hopefully I'm becoming a better man. I know that in this past year I've made some mistakes and hurt some people, but that's not who I am at my core. I know that everything is not going to be set straight in an instant or a weekend, but I'm trying to make things right. As I mentioned earlier in the week, I'm really looking forward to heading to Abilene this weekend. Sure, it's going to be great to watch Sing Song, but most of all I want to be with a lot of the people who have helped to shape me into the person that I am today.

If that's the lesson that I've learned, I think it's been a pretty good year.