THE UNEXPLAINABLE URGE TO KEEP ON GOING

Authored by Aarya Tyagi

Law school can be tough. It’s been one and a half years in Nirma for me and I still find it difficult to handle. So as to add to my misery, juniors come along and ask for guidance and help. Like here I am, barely surviving on my own and I am expected to give constructive feedback to their efforts and guide them through the river where my boat’s been capsizing ever now and then? But then again, I feel there involves a sense of one’s own personal ego in such matters, so I end up giving them the advice they need. Overtime, I have realized that the advice I am giving my juniors was the advice that somewhere, at some point of time I should have followed but didn’t. Hence, it becomes funny to me that how we subconsciously learn from our failures and our own shortcomings. When we come to college, a new city is always filled with a sense of strangeness and it is natural human nature to treat anything new with a hint of suspicion (okay, maybe A LOT of suspicion). However, the new city becomes familiar soon, the strangers become friends, the professors become approachable (maybe not all of them but you get the point right?) and in general, you feel comfortable. Its not the comfort of our families, it’s the mere comfort of belonginess. Then comes the usual shenanigans of law school, the familiarity of belonginess quickly becomes subject to change according to – your academics, your status as a student, your repo with professors, with your batchmates and yada-yada-yada. In summary, the peace you have in your college quickly comes down crumbling if you don’t be according to society. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am not talking about the society as we know it. I am still talking about law school – yea dude! It’s a society on its own. It has its own progressions, regressions, its own taboos and its own norms. Living in accordance with this society can be hard. Some fight it, some live with it, some ignore it but I can tell this one thing – EVERYONE is equally affected. It’s the golden rule of entropy they say – in order there is chaos. Similarly, in the law school society there is chaos as well. The only difference is that, there is no order in this society in the first place. Simple concepts such as freedom of choice and unity are really confusing here and truth be told, even I haven’t figured what those are. Sometimes, life can be hard but law school? Its always hard bro. There is no break from law school and I mean it! Even in actual semester breaks – we run around in our internships or sit quietly over the looming dread of results and when the results come out, we run away from the eminent wrath of our families (quite understandable from their side though). Law school becomes harder and harder every passing moment of our lives and sometimes I feel like ending it all (relax not what Raju Rastogi did but more like what Farhaan did – Although I don’t have the guts to either jump out of the building or talk to my father about career change lol) 

But that’s the thing! I just can’t end it all. Every passing day, I learn new things – whether it is some new law or on how to deal with toxicity in people. Everyday, in this gloomy society, there is still a shimmer of hope for me to keep on going. There is still something that drives me forward and soon I come to realize that the hope arises out of my relentless positivity. Life at law school is overwhelming but do you know that there is some small fickle of a good thing that is there with you? This small fickle can be anything. It could be those “Chai” time with friends, it could be that juicy gossip, it could be that moot you would be working hard for, it could even be the anticipation to celebrate your bestie’s birthday at their room at midnight. These things are only fickle as compared to those overwhelming negativity law school offers as a bonus, but they do help a lot. The urge to keep on moving forward, the urge to prove everyone wrong about yourself even when you clearly don’t care what everyone thinks, the urge to be the batch topper, the urge to be the best mooter or debater or the urge to be a simple existing human being, all helps us to keep on going. 

I have tried to explain a lot, but I feel I have explained nothing. The gist is that, Law school society is tough and is all kinds of bad, but there is always an unexplainable urge to keep on going. So, my advice to any junior (or even seniors for that matter) – Life is dependent on a lot of factors. You just have to remind yourself that there are positive factors as well. So, keep on going. And as Naruto always said – Dattebayo! (that’s “Believe it” for you non anime fans)