Pain hurts. However in American the Sunny, those in pain tend to get isolated. They aren't encouraged to talk about it. And, let's face it, it's even assumed that pain can be contagious.
So lawyers who lose a job or don't make partner tend to segregate themselves in a very private world of suffering. They replay what they could have done differently. They assume that their pain is, well, unique so it would be impossible to gain perspective by comparing and contrasting it with the pain others have endured.
Finally, they might be freed from that brutal isolation. In THE WASHINGTON POST, Bob Dole comes out of the closet about his extreme suffering after losing the presidential race in 1996. One might have thought that at that high level, the players are all big boys and big girls. They understand the game and that they could lose. So when they do they can just shrug it off.
The reality is that Dole would lose nights' sleep replaying what he could have done. He blamed himself. He figured his professional life was finished. That's the first part of the opinion-editorial. Then in the second part he chronicles his career since. It's a whole lot busier and perhaps less angst-ridden than the path he traveled in political life. The lesson here for displaced lawyers is that there can be a next after a profound setback. For that to happen, though, those dealt the blow have to be ready to let the pain go.
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