WYSIWYG
I think about my grandfather a lot now that I'm in law school. My grandfather's life was replete with the law: he was an FBI agent, an attorney, and ultimately a judge in the Utah state court system. He died shortly before I graduated college, before I even considered that going to law school would be a viable option for me. I wonder sometimes what it would be like if he were alive now. I know he would be tickled pink that I came to law school, and he would boast of it proudly to his bridge group and golfing companions. He would smile and chuckle to himself and say, "My granddaughter's going through law school."
I wonder what he would think if he knew how often I felt scared and incompetent and unsure of my chosen future profession. I wonder if he ever felt the same things when he went through law school. Somehow, from what I know of him, I don't think he would have felt as much self-doubt as I do, if indeed he were familiar with the concept at all. His mind was so analytical, so impassioned for learning, and I think maybe the instances of not knowing would have seemed an adventure to him, just another puzzle to unravel with his brilliant mind.
Of course, usually there is another side to the coin -- a private face behind every public facade that the world does not often get to see. Sometimes, in fact, when we see glimpses of that private face, we are horrified, because we realize that those whom we idolized in gold are really mere humans bespeckled with flecks of tarnish like the rest of us. That's probably true of everyone. But I think if it were ever not true of someone, it would have been not true of my grandfather. He seemed to be a WYSIWYG -- a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of man. It comforts me to hold on to that, whether or not it is true.
He wrote an autobiography, which I read when I was in the 9th grade. I partially re-read it a couple years ago when I began to digitize it and work on editing it -- a project I have never completed, but may finish some day. There's a story in the book that sticks in my mind: at one point, when my grandfather was a green Fibbie out in the field, he managed to leave his firearm in a public restroom and drive 20 or 30 minutes away before realizing what he had done. This was it for him, he thought. He would be in so much trouble if that gun wasn't there when he went back to look for it. He would certainly lose his job. By some great strike of fortune that my grandfather always seemed to have on his side, the gun was still in the stall where he left it when he finally made it back to the restroom. The way he must have felt during that 20 or 30 minute drive back to the restroom is probably similar to how I sometimes feel in law school -- like my career is about to go down the toilet before it has even had a chance to begin. So I think about things like that and it makes me feel like maybe I can get through it all by some lucky strike of fortune too. Maybe I can learn to overcome my self-doubt, or else cover it in a nice shiny facade of gleaming golden self-confidence.
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I wonder what he would think if he knew how often I felt scared and incompetent and unsure of my chosen future profession. I wonder if he ever felt the same things when he went through law school. Somehow, from what I know of him, I don't think he would have felt as much self-doubt as I do, if indeed he were familiar with the concept at all. His mind was so analytical, so impassioned for learning, and I think maybe the instances of not knowing would have seemed an adventure to him, just another puzzle to unravel with his brilliant mind.
Of course, usually there is another side to the coin -- a private face behind every public facade that the world does not often get to see. Sometimes, in fact, when we see glimpses of that private face, we are horrified, because we realize that those whom we idolized in gold are really mere humans bespeckled with flecks of tarnish like the rest of us. That's probably true of everyone. But I think if it were ever not true of someone, it would have been not true of my grandfather. He seemed to be a WYSIWYG -- a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of man. It comforts me to hold on to that, whether or not it is true.
He wrote an autobiography, which I read when I was in the 9th grade. I partially re-read it a couple years ago when I began to digitize it and work on editing it -- a project I have never completed, but may finish some day. There's a story in the book that sticks in my mind: at one point, when my grandfather was a green Fibbie out in the field, he managed to leave his firearm in a public restroom and drive 20 or 30 minutes away before realizing what he had done. This was it for him, he thought. He would be in so much trouble if that gun wasn't there when he went back to look for it. He would certainly lose his job. By some great strike of fortune that my grandfather always seemed to have on his side, the gun was still in the stall where he left it when he finally made it back to the restroom. The way he must have felt during that 20 or 30 minute drive back to the restroom is probably similar to how I sometimes feel in law school -- like my career is about to go down the toilet before it has even had a chance to begin. So I think about things like that and it makes me feel like maybe I can get through it all by some lucky strike of fortune too. Maybe I can learn to overcome my self-doubt, or else cover it in a nice shiny facade of gleaming golden self-confidence.
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