if you missed your hipster calling, try to take a vacation.

Above The Law just featured a great article about doing what you love and letting everything else fall as it may, and in true social media fashion, it led me to yet another really great blog by a lawyer... who decided not to be a lawyer and calls himself "The People's Therapist."  This post is about his hipster friend.  I'll save the "surprise twist" and just encourage you to read it for yourself:

Hipster.  And Lawyer.

photo by liz:  http://lizzythings.tumblr.com/

Turns out this guy also recently published a book:  Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy.  I haven't read it... but based on the title, it sounds like perfect beach reading for the trip to Mexico I am taking next week.  Yes, you heard me.  I am going on vacation. 
I AM GOING ON VACATION. 
I hope there comes a point in my life where I don't feel compelled to follow that sentence up with "but I billed 175 hours last month."  It would be really nice to not feel like I'm cheating on my career by going on vacation. 

To my firm's credit, everyone has been very positive about me taking 5 whole business days off and being without email or cell access.  With the exception of a couple senior associates who have not-so-subtly let me know that in their 12 years of practice, they have never taken off more than 3 consecutive business days... not even when they got married.  Choking back vomit, I may have responded that I wasn't impressed with that little statistic... and actually, did they realize how sad that was?  Ok, so maybe my response was a bit harsh.  But I feel very strongly about vacation... and almost more so about this ridiculous notion that lawyers shouldn't take them.

I have a week filled with friends, speaking Spanish, a massage benefiting a fabulous non-profit organization, playing cards on the beach, riding cruisers around a quaint Mexican town, horseback riding on the beach and pina coladas ahead of myself.  As from the second I step on the plane, I have promised myself that I will leave my guilt at the door.