“Everything you possess of skill, and wealth, and handicraft, wasn’t it first merely a thought and a quest?” – Rumi, Poet and Theologian
In her recent book, Super-Better, Jane McGonigal considers the notion that life’s challenges can be vanquished by turning them into a video game with these seven steps:
1. Challenge yourself.
2. Collect and activate power-ups.
3. Find and battle the bad guys.
4. Seek out and complete quests.
5. Recruit your allies.
6. Adopt a secret identity.
7. Go for an epic win.
It may be difficult when you’re lugging a backpack full of books around to think of yourself as being on a quest. But, if you’ll forgive me for being frank, that’s exactly what you’re on when you have your sights set on Bar Exam success.
In one sense, this quest is much as it is in Jane McGonigal’s video game. You want to get to the next level, from law student to lawyer. (Duh!) However, there’s an alternate definition of the word that fits much better.
A quest is a search for something. Not an ordinary search, like trying to find your keys. (An all too common search for yours truly.) Instead, a noble search, a search for a transcendent goal – one that takes its own time to be fully understood and achieved. It’s a Frodo Baggins kind of thing, a Golden Fleece kind of thing.
Why though, is the Bar Exam a quest?
For starters, there’s the matter of how important passing is. Money and prestige may do it for many. I prefer to go directly to the feeling I had on the day my results arrived in the mail, and still have all these years later. Being a lawyer legitimized me somehow. It announced that I had an identity and a purpose in this world. To me, being a lawyer is significant. It has value.
There’s also the matter of all the time, treasure, and effort that Bar Exam success demands. Translate 2,000 plus practice MBE questions, 15 or so practice Performance Tests and 40 plus practice essays into hours. Can it really be claimed that Thor, the Invisible Woman, even Spider-Man, had to train this hard?
The big thing though – what takes this endeavor from a simple journey to a noble quest – is this. The outcome is unknown – in fact, unknowable until the Friday before Thanksgiving. It’s the not knowing, and having to deal with the not knowing, that makes your Bar Exam preparation a transcendent thing. It’s the not knowing that makes it a true search.
The search, I submit with great respect and great affection, starts with Y-O-U! It starts with looking past all the myths, clichés and gratuitous advice, and discovering or deciding what all this really means to you. And that’s not the end of it. It proceeds to looking honestly and accurately at yourself, warts and all. What are your strengths and how can you leverage them? What are your weaknesses and how can you shore them up? Are you even ready to take this on or are you simply taking for granted that now is the time? These are not easy questions. However, if this search is to have meaning, they’re not supposed to be.
Everyone’s first step on the quest is different, and how you start is up to you. But start! And, once you start, keep going, and don’t ever lose sight of the importance of what you’re doing. Own it! That, plus hard work, is going to get you to the Golden Fleece. I promise.
