So here it is: every reason why I decided to hike the Appalachian Trail.

I'm pretty sure I've been sabotaging myself from the get go.

From taking a year off to doing poorly on my first exam, registering for an online class without owning a computer to not making sure I had wifi every Tuesday for said class, missing the registration deadline for my second LSAT to misplacing my syllabus before the first day of the class, I clearly didn't have it together.

That's the thing: I usually have it together. If I want something I make a plan, stick to it, get it. If I don't want something I half-ass it, ho-hum about it, and make justifications (*ahem* excuses). My parents saw all of this, why didn't I?

Statistically, I have a 10% chance of having the career I actually want in the legal field.

If you were given a choice to spend ~$150,000 and 3-4 years of your life with a 90% chance that you WILL NOT get what you paid $150,000 and 3-4 years of your life for, would you take that chance?

I want to do humanitarian work, societal improvement, legal counseling, public policy, environmental protection, and other 'do good' legal things. I also don't want to get stuck in a corporate cog just because I have to pay my bills. There's a 90% chance I'll be in that corporate cog with $185,000+ worth of debt (including undergrad loans) miserably working 60+ hours a week.

For what?

Law is not what it was when I first decided I wanted to attend law school.

Once upon a time, in a far away land called Massachusetts 2004 there was a young girl who met an old lawyer. She was wealthy, wore fancy suits, drove a nice car, had her own house, and was very intelligent. She went to law school for less than $20,000 total. Her house was mortgaged at an affordable rate. Her car was payed off by her 30's. She worked in corporate law.

In 2004 there were about 1 million registered lawyers in the US total. In 2017 that number rose by more than by more than 300,000. During that thirteen year period the job market tanked, the stock market crashed, the great recession raised inflation, the cost of living more than doubled, and the chances of a top school went from scoring a 160 out of 180 to a 178 out of 180 on a standardized exam.

What 9 year old me saw was opportunity, financial stability, intelligence, and exciting things to read (which was all I did back then). When high school me rolled around and decided to go into helping professions I saw the law as another way to help people. An official way. A smart way. When college me rolled around I saw non-profits and state governments and Boston immigration law. When post-grad me rolled in she saw crippling debt and her parent's couch.

I read a book called Don't go to Law School, Unless and you should too if you are considering law school.

Someone decided to make the contents of the book into an amazing flowchart. This flow chart, I kid you not, made me cry. But it was the brutally honest answer I needed to a question that I didn't want to ask: Should I really be going to law school? READ IT!!

I want to put my mental health first because I don't want to end up where I did before.

As most of you know, I was hospitalized in 2015 after a suicide attempt. I met some of my best friends there, learned a lot about myself and coping, finally got on some much needed medication, and realized that my schedule and lifestyle was killing me slowly.

To put it this way: I once put my career above all and it brought me loneliness, misery, uncertainty, and a need to please everyone else. I don't want that. I want happiness, excitement, and passion behind my work.

I want a reason to get out of bed every morning. I want to have a sense of purpose. I don't want to be stuck inside all day feeling guilty for wasting a perfect fall day. I don't want to feel the need to harm myself. I don't want to live life in my bed or behind my desk wishing I wasn't there.

I am BROKE (just like most millennials)

It feels as if I am putting the integrity of my entire financial future on the line for a 10% chance I may get what I want. Sure, you say, but someone has to be the 10%! The fact that I may not be that 10% and that I would have to rip pages out of library books (I feel worse about ruining the book than screwing over the student that needed it) to get to that 10% for the next 3 years just does not seem worth it to me.

I was once very competitive. I even cried in a math professor's office over a B+ during my undergrad because my GPA dropped 0.5 points over it. I don't think that I want to be that obsessive person anymore.

$35,000 is a lot more manageable than $185,000. As much as I love my parents, I don't want to live on their couch for the rest of my life.

Rachel, SO WHAT?

This was a really difficult decision for me. I'm sure it is a difficult decision a lot of people have to make. I am really thankful that I have extremely supportive parents who helped me through it. But I also know that not everyone has parents like mine. Seriously, if you need help with a decision like this I am here and there are a lot of people who will still root for you.

All the feels:

I am feeling (despite the fact that people have told me I don't need to feel this way and I know that I don't) guilty, lost, ashamed, scared, overwhelmed, anxious, happy, exhausted, unsure, and so much more than that. Those feelings are totally okay. I'm essentially losing a part of what I thought was my identity. I will, obviously, rebuild. But 2015 Rachel would have seen this as a life-ending and devastating blow. It is not.

Thank you for reading my rant.

I specifically am not editing this post because I want it to be raw and communicate actual feelings.

Keep Trekking, Rachel (trailname TBD)

Special thanks to:

Mom + Dad

Disclaimers:

IF YOU NEED HELP (mental help) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE call someone or use the suicide hotline: 1-800-273-8255

If you need someone to chat to about your life, I am a real live person here with feelings!

Don't make this decision because I told you to, just do the research.

Why I decided to thruhike the Appalachian Trail