Pedigree and Choices

Maybe I'm just being hard on myself. Tonight, I was putzing around on my undergraduate alumni association page, and was updating information. In that time, I was also looking at what some my classmates have been doing. In one breath, I feel so ashamed to be where I am. In another, I realize that it is the choices I have made that have brought me to where I am, and I wonder - am I lost? And am I lost for good? I have gone to two very prestigious schools. I've done well, but not top-of-the-class well. I have always been a little more relaxed, a little more laid back, especially in law school where I solidly felt that I had nothing to prove. Maybe it's the thing in me that hates homework, something I've been bad with since the 3rd grade. Anyway, I completed the race and crossed the finish line with my degrees in hand. And yet, when I see how much more established and successful some of my classmates are, I can't help but wonder if I've made some wrong choices. I feel like I've just been a slug compared to some of them. First of all, I could have studied harder. I could have managed my time better, put more time in. I could have kissed a little more ass. I could have asked more dumb questions (while wanting to shoot myself). Those choices are the low-hanging fruit. But then comes other choices... taking the low hanging fruit and accepting the job with my Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde boss. Committing myself to a small-firm lifestyle. Abandoning my undergraduate community and not staying in touch. Not going for the harder places to get into. Taking the New York bar instead of Maryland or Virginia. All of my choices have a reasoning behind them. They are all logical and plausible. But what if...? I can't help but feel ashamed to know that I am where I am, and other classmates are more successful. It's not a matter of envying them - I simply am humbled and awed to be among their masses as a classmate, and am happy for their success. It just makes me rethink the pathways of my life. The great quote to emerge from Spider-Man is that "with great power comes great responsibility." Have I shirked my responsibility? I know I am good - I know that I am smart, and that when I am committed to a project that I will do my best. Is my problem just my commitment? I know we shouldn't measure ourselves by others. I personally hate the idea of "keeping up with the Joneses." But, it's not quite that... it's more of taking measure of myself. Did you really do your best, girl? It's not so much wanting what they have, but wondering if I could have done better. Maybe I'm just frustrated because it appears that the financing isn't going to go through with my house. I just don't have wads of cash sitting around for closing, and it's not a house that I'm going to move into. This little piece of my American Dream is crumbling at this time. I'm okay with it in one sense, because if it's meant to happen, it will. God is sovereign, and I trust that he has a plan for me. This townhouse may not fit into his plan for my life, and that's okay. How does this all tie in? If I applied myself more, or kissed ass a little more, or asked some more dumb questions, I might have gotten myself a better job that paid me more to pay for my house, instead of living just on the edge of the poverty line, with school loans ticking up seemingly every fucking month. Oh by the way: Fuck you, Alan Greenspan. Fuck you. I am feeling a little bit like a failure. I shouldn't - I have achieved many things. Got those degrees, seen and done a lot of things, passed the bar, am now a bona fide attorney. And yet it's not good enough... or seemingly so. I am not greedy or materialistic, but something is always missing. I try to balance things and enjoy the here and now, yet preserve my chances for the future. Has that approach been wrong? Why can't I give myself a break? I like to think it's not wrong. My choices are just... different. Not wrong, merely different. So it makes me wonder about the book of my life, and what it says about me. And, looking back, would I really want to read it?