legal sanity

It’s probably no mere coincidence that at a time of political challenge and economic uncertainty in the United States, there’s been a flurry of coverage on the subject of … happiness.

For some time now, I’ve been intrigued by the science and study of happiness, as evidenced in this post on the road to lawyer happiness and this one that puts lawyer happiness under the microscope.

So, I eagerly read a pair of recent Christian Science Monitor articles on the subject.

The first piece - titled Actually, Happiness Isn’t Within - challenges the “firmly held and particularly American belief that happiness” is an internal quality; a state of being, or wellbeing, that we cultivate from the inside out. Citing new findings by social scientists, the article asserts that our happiness is a byproduct of external factors. Topping the list of those outside influences “is the quantity and the quality of our relationships.” (Journalist Penelope Trunk echoes this point in a post that offers a few tests for discerning what we need to be happier.)

Given this new happiness formula and the amount of time most of us spend on-the-job, it stands to reason that our happiness must be strongly linked to the quality of our work environment and business relationships. If we’re routinely unhappy doing what we do for a living, it’s a sure sign that these external components are unhealthy and stacked against us.

This is the underlying message of Alexander Kjerulf’s CSM commentary on cultivating happiness at work.

According to Kjerulf, it’s the norm for U.S. workers to be dissatisfied with their jobs. That’s because managers and employees alike fail to make workplace happiness a priority. This isn’t a gosh, well, I guess that’s too bad fact of life. As Kjerulf puts it: “Hating your job is not an inconvenience, it's a serious problem. It can cause stress and depression. Ultimately, it can kill you.”

Lawyers should be acutely aware of the seriousness of this issue. As Sue Shellenbarger (pdf) writes in an article on Lawyers Opening Up About Depression, studies have found that about “19% of lawyers suffer depression at any given time, compared with 6.7% of the population as a whole.” While some might question the exact correlation between career stresses and depression, it seems that it’s well accepted that the “practice of law, with constant conflict and billing pressures, can take a toll.”

Attorney Daniel Lukasik contacted me last week to let me know about a website he’s launched to support himself and other lawyers who are living and coping with the day-to-day realities of depression. I checked it out and it presents as a terrific and much-needed resource.

For another perspective on lawyers and depression, Stephanie West Allen points us to a new book exploring the “benefits of negative emotions” and “how we might view depression in a more constructive way.”