Lawyer vs. Life Long Student

On the last day of law school school classes, my good friend turned to me and confessed that she used her Westlaw points to get a book titled "Running From the Law". While I wouldn't use graduate school to run from the law, I would use it to run from adult life.

How studying is better than lawyering:

1) Student poor is not that bad. While generally true that America shuns and humiliates its poor people, it has also carved out an exception for those who are 'student poor'. Even beyond that, a poor graduate student is considered somewhat noble by the middle class.
2) Casual clothing is both expected and more comfortable. Most professors dress like utter shit, so there is no shame in showing up to class (or even office hours) wearing whatever your richer roommate has left around on her floor.
3) No one notices or cares if you are having a nervous breakdown. Not like work associates or bosses are interested promoting your eudamonia, they do care about liability as a collateral matter to your mental state. At school as long as your tuition is paid no one is going to interrupt your next existential crisis.
4) A new semester is new opportunity for redemption. If you screw up in school, just wait 3 months and you get a chance to restore your reputation and academic record with a new set of professors and a new set of classmates.

How studying is the same as lawyering:

1) The deadline creep. No matter what, the calendar is against you.
2) The over-inflated importance of attendance. Woody Allen said that 80% of success is just showing up. True, but it can still feel like a waste of time.
3) A frustratingly artificial heirarchy. Most work bosses prefer and reward deference and so do professors, deans and administrators.
4) Pressure to conform. While it is no secret that the law demands homogeny of manner and punishes creativity, university departments indoctrinate students with a sense of 'loyalty' and retaliate against inner departmental criticism.
5) High probability of developing an inferiority complex. No one reads everything in  their field. No one has perfect analysis. No one can run a protracted sleep deficiet and still be a decent human being for more than 12 hours. But, both life styles are unforgiving of failure. Thus we learn to fake knowledge, skill, insight, wisdom and personality. And voila! A fraud is born.

How studying is worse than lawyering:

1) Money. Students don't have any. Sometimes lawyers don't either, but at least lawyers have a reasonable hope to get some in the near future.
2) Isolation. A lot of school learning requires drilling facts and reading the work of smarter people. Unlike other adult versions of 'me-time', student alone time almost never involves bubble baths or wine.
3) Mysterious measures of worth. The working world's measures of success may be shallow, but they are objective. Stuff like winning motions/cases, gross receipts and salary can go a long way in bolstering a false sense of self worth. On the other hand, students are evaluated in a this nebulous cloud of pleasing some guy in a bow tie.

While I do love money, I've always fancied myself as extremely noble. This one requires much more thought and a visit to my local university.