After reading the chapter why lawyers are unhappy, I am very touched and share it with you.
Lawyers have always been a prestigious industry, and the classrooms of law schools are full of young and ideal students. However, according to a recent survey, 52% of practicing lawyers are dissatisfied with their lives. Obviously, this dissatisfaction is not monetary, because according to the survey of 1999, a young lawyer who has just started his career can earn $200,000 a year in a large law firm, and lawyers have already surpassed doctors to become the highest-paid industry in the United States. The mental health of lawyers is surprisingly poor, and they are more likely to get depression than the average person.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that among 104 occupations, 3 occupations have a significant risk of depression compared with other industries. Lawyers rank first, and the depression rate is 3.6 times higher than that of the general population. Lawyers are also at high risk of alcoholism and drug abuse. The divorce rate of lawyers, especially female lawyers, is also higher than that of other industries. Therefore, no matter from any angle, lawyers are the best example of "money is not everything": they have the highest salary, but they are the most unhappy and unhealthy. Lawyers themselves know this, so many of them plan to retire early or change careers.
Positive psychologists have found that there are three main reasons why lawyers are unhappy: the first is pessimism. Here, the definition of pessimism is different from what people usually understand. These pessimists will attribute bad things to permanent and universal factors. What the pessimist sees is universal, permanent and uncontrollable.
The performance of pessimistic life insurance salesmen is worse than that of optimistic life insurance salesmen; Pessimistic college students have poor grades; In baseball, pessimistic pitchers and batters do not perform well; Pessimistic NBA players are more likely to lose their temper for one than optimistic players.
So pessimists are usually losers, with one exception: pessimists are usually better lawyers. The students of Virginia Law School in 1990 were tested, and the optimism test in chapter 6 was given to them, and then their performance in law school was tracked. The results show that pessimistic law school students perform better than optimistic students, especially in traditional academic evaluation, such as the overall average academic performance and the adoption rate of law journals.
For lawyers, pessimism is an advantage, because they regard the problem as permanent and universal, so they will handle it very carefully. A cautious attitude will make the lawyer consider all possibilities, and he can anticipate all possible problems, so he can help his clients prepare all kinds of responding documents more comprehensively, and the success rate will be high.
If you are not born to be so cautious, law school will teach you and train you. Unfortunately, the personality traits required for this job will only make you an unhappy person.
According to positive psychology, the three influencing factors of lawyers' lack of happiness are pessimism, responsibility and powerlessness, and falling into a huge win-lose situation.
Those lawyers I know, because they don't have a deep friendship, it is difficult to judge whether they are happy or not!
So, if you want to be a happy person, please consider your career carefully!
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