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&lt;p&gt;Yesterday&amp;#8217;s WSJ Law Blog published the first part of Ashby Jones&amp;#8217; interview of writer and recovering lawyer Gretchen Rubin. Rubin, a former Supreme Court clerk and Yale law grad, recently spent a year doing &amp;#8220;everything I could think of that I&amp;#8217;d heard could promote happiness&amp;#8221; and is now publishing the fruits of her research in The Happiness Project. While not exactly groundbreaking, some of her insights about lawyers and unhappiness do ring true:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Clueless ambition may not be the best reason to go to law school&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;GR: There&amp;#8217;s whole notion of &amp;#8220;drift&amp;#8221; that I think a lot of people fall into with law school. They don&amp;#8217;t decide, necessarily, to go to law school, but they drift into it, really for lack of a better idea.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;#8230;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I thought, as long as they keep giving me gold stars to put on my forehead, I&amp;#8217;ll keep trying to get them. As long as they give me bars to jump over, I&amp;#8217;ll jump over them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;WSJ: What are your thoughts on lawyer unhappiness at law firms? &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;GR: I think the main one is the one I referred to earlier&amp;#8212;that people don&amp;#8217;t go into it mindfully. They didn&amp;#8217;t choose to be there. &amp;#8230;. [I]f you&amp;#8217;d rather be doing something else and you&amp;#8217;re stuck in a law firm, you&amp;#8217;re liable to be unhappy. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;WSJ: I&amp;#8217;ve always thought that law school lures a lot of people who are highly ambitious, but don&amp;#8217;t exactly know how to channel that ambition. It&amp;#8217;s a weird mixture of highly driven and sort of clueless. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;GR: I think that&amp;#8217;s right. And then, after you take on all this debt, you&amp;#8217;re stuck there and don&amp;#8217;t have control over your life. When you don&amp;#8217;t have control, it can be an unhappy feeling.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;A few words of advice for lawyers who now feel stuck&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get more sleep: &amp;#8220;sleep is really a key to happiness.&amp;#8221;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Join a club: &amp;#8220;Starting or joining a group is a very efficient way to maintain relationships, and they&amp;#8217;re very efficient engines of happiness.&amp;#8221;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stay tuned for tidbits from Part II.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;- posted by vera&lt;/p&gt;

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