Defining "It"

I imagine all of us, male and female alike, have the dream of having it all. What "it" is can vary greatly. For some, maybe a fulfilling career + plenty of time with family. For others, time and money to travel is a priority. And still for others, value is placed on material goods or keeping up with those fictional Joneses. Some people want children; some don't. "It" is as unique as the person.

Awhile back, an ex of mine got married. The changes he made to his life at that point in time, compared to the life he always told me he wanted, were surprising. Instead of moving to San Diego to live by the beach, surf and grow citrus fruit and olives in his yard, he and his new wife settled a mere bike ride away from their parents. Instead of getting the English bulldog he had obsessed about, they purchased a labradoodle. Addressing these changes, he told me "I changed what I wanted for myself." To me, at the time, changing what one wanted for oneself sounded remarkably like a wordy way of saying "I settled." After all, how can one honestly say a house in the suburbs is a step up from running away from "home" to live a dream?

But now I realize that I, too, changed what I want for myself somewhere along the way. I have redefined what "it" is that makes me happiest. Ironically enough, getting away from the 'burbs, running away to CA with Mr. Y to frolic and focus less on my career is my "it." Sure, it's nice to have an interesting and challenging job, but it's nicer to have a job I can leave behind when I go home on Friday evening. It's nicer to know I can spend my weekend hanging out with friends, wine tasting with Mr. Y, or, hell, just reading a book if I want to. It's nicer to spend a little more money now enjoying my life than it is to save every penny for that rainy day that may never come.

It seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? Working less = good. But I don't know of many people who pursue a law degree with a dream of working less. Quite the contrary, in law school we're told from day 1 how hard we will be working when we graduate (and how much money we'll make doing so). Our "it" is money, a challenging and rewarding career, personal prestige, winning that case, wearing the power suit and feeling important. And some people are decisive enough to continue to have that focus throughout their lives. Those are the attorneys you see on TV taking high-profile cases, the ones that drive Italian automobiles, the ones that make partner at big law firms in record time. I went to school with a few of those, or maybe quite a few of those, and even consider a few to be friends.

But at some point, maybe during my clerkship when many of the big firm attorneys I knew from my class were miserable, something changed for me. Sure, I continued to have ambitions. A paycheck is always a good thing, and a paycheck that affords us the ability to save more and (hopefully) retire early is an even better thing. The mental challenge of law is still rewarding as well, and winning that case still rocks. But the most rewarding aspect of my job these days is having it under control--being in a position to delegate work to others, limit my schedule to reasonable hours, take vacations regularly, be home to cook dinner, and enjoy my weekends.

A wise person I work with said once (and this is a very rough paraphrase), "you can have it all, you just can't have it all at the same time." What she meant is that sometimes it's not possible to leave work at a reasonable hour, and sometimes it's not possible to win that promotion quickly when you're consistently leaving early to spend time with your children. As women--heck, as people in general--we have to choose our "it" for the long haul, knowing that it's better to look back over our lives and realize we had had it all over the course of a lifetime than it is to stress ourselves to death trying to have it all right now.

So that's my plan: take my "it" as it comes, tweaking the definition as necessary to address opportunities as they arise. And, who knows? Maybe one of these days I'll look back and realize I've had it all.