Old Commencement Speech By Anne Lamott...

that makes me remember that the bar isn't the whole world, even when it feels like it is...

Here's a snippet:

We can see spirit made visible in people being kind to each other, especially when it's a really busy person, taking care of a needy annoying person. Or even if it's terribly important you, stopping to take care of pitiful, pathetic you. In fact, that's often when we see spirit most brightly.

It's magic to see spirit largely because it's so rare. Mostly you see the masks and the holograms that the culture presents as real. You see how you're doing in the world's eyes, or your family's, or -- worst of all -- yours, or in the eyes of people who are doing better than you -- much better than you -- or worse. But you are not your bank account, or your ambitiousness. You're not the cold clay lump with a big belly you leave behind when you die. You're not your collection of walking personality disorders. You are spirit, you are love, and, while it is increasingly hard to believe during this presidency, you are free. You're here to love, and be loved, freely. If you find out next week that you are terminally ill -- and we're all terminally ill on this bus -- all that will matter is memories of beauty, that people loved you, and you loved them, and that you tried to help the poor and innocent.

You can read the whole speech here.

Of course, this doesn't negate the whole studying-for-the-bar thing, because for me, it's all somehow connected to that, to taking care of myself and others, and the world, even though some days I just want to move somewhere and open a tiny ice cream shop bookstore and it feels like I've ended up in a vastly different place from the one I imagined three years ago when I started. But somehow, today, it makes me feel a little better about the whole thing.