It's hard to fully comprehend just how tricky and frightening the world gets once you leave the academic chute until you suddenly find yourself swimming in a sea of adult concerns and responsibilities. And you haven't got a flotation device. Or a study guide. Or a list of expectations, a check-list to help to make sense of the many things required to successfully navigate the ofttimes muddied waters of life.

I didn't actually expect life to  beat me up the way that it has. And saying that is rather like saying that I experienced starvation after eating 3 meals in a day because I'd been used to eating 6. In other words, 97% of the people in the world are getting beat up much worse than am I. But my point stands. I found myself confronted by challenges that were outside the realm of familiarity. Sometimes it felt like I was scrabbling around on a slippery wall, grasping for handholds.

It's been as much of a refreshing and invigorating experience as it has been an exhausting and troublesome one. The scariest thing is coming to the realization that to live life, you do have to be truly brave. To get up every day, thinking about not only your work, whatever it may be, but also about your interests, your goals, pursuits, and about your responsibilities. What doctor's office to call to complain about tests being run unannounced. Which bank teller to ask what to do after an ATM failed to provide the $40 taken out. When to take the time to write a scathing indictment of your apartment's poor customer service skills and blatant attempts at screwing its residents. How does one not lose oneself in the avalanche of "must dos?"

Prioritization is hard. It's become very easy to see why youth are idealists and the older are downtrodden and cynical. How are you supposed to pursue those ideals when you're also worried about sweeping up dog hair every single day when you get home from the office? Where is the energy supposed to come from? I have it easy, comparatively. The latest that I have stayed at work is 6:00pm. That said, I have approximately 6.5 waking hours every day not spent in the office to myself.

I'm trying to study for the LSAT. When I'm being rigorous in my studying I try to study for 2 hours a day. I'm left with 4.5 hours.  In the morning, I spend half an hour getting washed-up, dressed, and doing my crunches and push-ups. I spend another half an hour making coffee and eating my breakfast. Then I go to work. I'm left with 3.5 hours.

3.5 hours. A day. No wonder the adjustment is hard. It takes practice and stamina to learn how to use the little bits of free time every day wisely. Efficiency is a hard mistress to master.  And I need to learn how to do it.

More to come.