Breakup with the Bar

An open letter to the bar exam:

Dear Bar Exam:

Despite your persistent attempts at ruining my life, I am feeling calmer and more in control of our abusive one-sided relationship than I ever have. Don't get me wrong, you might still continue to torment me, and be the cause of both my financial ruin and public embarrassment. But what has changed is that you will no longer make me feel bad about myself.

You're completely worthless. There. I've said it and it's true. You aren't the slightest bit of an indicator of my worth or competence as an attorney. All you are is a test of memory and survival through sleep deprivation. It seems that you really want you and I to be involved forever. I'm sorry, it's just not going to work out. Please consider this my break-up letter. Yes, I will see you next week as promised. But hopefully I will never see you again. You see, you weren't good to me. I don't want to have anything further to do with you.

Also, I'm tired of you messing around with other people, treating them bad, making them mentally and physically ill. It's bad enough that you abuse me, but it's even worse considering the thousands of victims whose lives you've ruined. You underestimate the people you are dealing with. I see success as black and white. I don't believe in potential. You're either a success in life or you're not. The people you're messing with, well we are of the "successful" class of people in life. We've worked hard with determination and strength of character. We never let anything stand in our way nor did we allow any excuse to destroy our destiny. We wanted to be lawyers and here we are. It's not fair for you to shatter our dreams.

I wanted to tell you that I am proud of myself and all my colleagues for going through this, especially those who are repeating the test. No one will ever understand what it's like, but that's ok, we understand each other. Only we know what the pain of the sleepless nights and low self esteem and frustration and anger and brief glimpses of hope and endless tears and that complete sense of defeat feels like. But regardless of what happens, we are the educated elite of this nation. No matter how much the bar tries to knock us down, we still get to stand on the pedestal of higher education and be ahead of most of our peers. They can't take that away from us. And because we are the cream of the crop, we will always be ok, because that's just the kind of people we decided to be. We didn't allow our destiny to be made for us, we weren't born that way, we fought for it and decided that nothing was more important. We've earned our shining stars and we will always keep them.

So bar exam, this is a Dear John letter to you. I can't make any guarantees but I hope you and I never meet again.


Love, One less victim.


GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE IN CASE I DON'T HAVE A CHANCE TO POST ANYTHING TOMORROW. WE CAN DO IT!!!