Memo week came and went with the grace of a Vanderbilt train crash. While all LP students are told at the beginning of the semester what they can expect, memo week still manages to derail our priorities. Nevertheless, if we heed the lessons learned from this short period, we might be able to build healthy habits to avoid future pains.
Memo week tends to bring the first symptoms of stress to the forefront, and its showing is magnificently diverse.
For some, the domain of reprieve is found in the snack aisle. It might start with a box of Wheat Thins (low fat of course), but once that’s mindlessly scarfed down while your soulless eyes stare at the bright computer screen, you might look for something with more oomph than processed cardboard. Welcome to the Chips Ahoy stage, where a whole sleeve of those delectable chewy cookies can disappear in minutes. At this point, you’ve got a jolt of sugar-filled motivation to jot down a half-baked thought before the insulin spike brings a wave of fatigue that miraculously transports you to the couch, where you spend the rest of the day.
For others, the stress of an approaching deadline paralyzes their secondary senses and subordinates them to the primary task. This means looking at the clock at 8pm and noticing that you haven’t eaten since 10am, but still kicking yourself because you shouldn’t be wasting time cooking and eating when you could be writing instead. Progress in the gym has stalled as you’ve put a hiatus on fueling your body and have little motivation to be lifting heavy circles when your mind is already exhausted. As an under-eater myself, I will say that the week was a rough one. I felt weak, tired, and irritable, and had a generalized feeling of inadequacy as I knew there was more I could be doing and yet I felt like I was already doing so much.
Finally, some may also enjoy stressing out as a wonderful midday group activity. This can be as simple as pulling up a chair next to a group of other 1Ls and collectively freaking each other out. “How many pages are yours so far?,” “Have you completed an outline?,” “What’s going to be your conclusion?” Comparison truly is the greatest thief of joy. Once everyone is done sharing with how far, or not far, along they are with their memo, the meeting is adjourned and each person walks away feeling more inadequate than they felt ten minutes ago!
While we are lucky to be law students in an emotionally accommodating environment to vent our frustrations, memo week holds a secret memo: This won’t be your last rodeo. In fact, this is just the beginning of a journey plagued with difficulties that will dwarf memo week. We won’t be getting a month-long notice about upcoming memos in real-life practice; instead we might expect a healthy dose of a couple memos per week, sprinkled in with all of our other duties and interrupted by constant meetings. We may have a world of case law to explore because of an unexpected morning phone call from a prospective client. Or we may simply be asked to research and write about topics we have very little or no familiarity with, and be expected to do it competently and with poise.
Fortunately, we are now in an environment to foster good habits and bring sorely-needed change. The legal field is not the paragon of self-care and temperance. Lawyers, as a group, tend to report higher levels of alcohol abuse and feelings of anxiety and depression compared to the general population. For the new generation of lawyers, we should strive to be more productively self-aware. Does it benefit me to keep stressing myself out with thought loops about how I have so much work to finish? Why do I keep running away from and aggrandizing problems rather than tackle them head-on?
Much good is to be said about compartmentalization and keeping yourself within the moment. Be fully focused on who is in front of you and shut the nagging voice in the back of your head that insists that you should be elsewhere. More importantly, when you do find time to complete your assignments, do them mindfully and with full presence. It will save you time in the long run and grant you peace-of-mind when you finally step away.
Alex Mostaghimi is a first-year student at BC Law. Contact him at mostagha@bc.edu.
BC Law: Impact 