Chains

His head was lowered and his arms were crossed, resting on the table in front of him. Michael, 23, was just out of Syracuse, and working as an entry-level research assistant at a prestigious Dallas advertising firm. I first met him the summer before when he was interning. Back then, he was bright-eyed, excited to be graduating, and eager to enter the work force. But since joining the firm in May, he had endured back-to-back 70 hour work weeks for months. His eyes, still blue, no longer sparkled as focused on the place mat before him.

“I was happier bartending,” he said, still looking down. “It’s not at all what I thought it would be.”

I felt for him and wanted to say something helpful, but everything that came to mind seemed hollow and empty and useless.

In 1987, I graduated from Texas Tech law school and took a job with a downtown Dallas law firm. The money was great and, other than the head attorney of our section, the people I worked with were friendly and helpful. But I quickly realized that I was hired as a workhorse and not much else. My sole function was to bill hours, the more the better, and to fill my quota I would be working very late most nights. I hated it almost immediately. Just how much I hated it became obvious the day I returned from my first vacation after taking the job.

About six months after graduation, a friend in the Air Force was moving from Enid, Oklahoma to Phoenix and asked if I would drive with him. I was gone a week, and the morning I returned and sat at my desk my hands started shaking and my chest tightened. That physical revulsion was not lost on me--I saw it, noted it, knew what it meant. This life I had arranged for myself was not healthy. It was life draining, not life enhancing, but even knowing that, it took me 12 more years before I took the first small steps in getting out. And now, some 10 years later, I am faced with another chance to finally do what I’ve always wanted to do, to finally be what it is I have always truly been.

I thought about all this as I sat there watching Michael.

I know one of his bosses. I considered calling him and asking him if he knew what his company was doing to these kids, if they truly intended to suck the life out them and leave them as shells of their former selves. I saw in my mind a giant spider wrapping these kids in its web, then sucking them dry. Was it really worth it just so the partners could live in Highland Park in their big fancy houses with their big fancy cars?

But I also knew it would do no good. The chains that held me to the job I hated all those years, the same chains Michael wears, the same worn by his boss, are all self-imposed. No one can free us but ourselves. And realizing that takes time. No amount of advice can rush the process, and some of us never break free.

I hope Michael does. I hope the sparkle returns to his mediterean blue eyes, and his brilliant smile finds its way home.

And I hope I do too.