In childhood, a lot of attention is paid to the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I remember being asked this question at maybe 5 years old, and it was a terrible question, the answer to which only got worse and more vague with age. There was a mantra: “Do what you like” to “not work a day in your life.” As a child, I had a hard time finding passion in just “doing” one thing—there were so many things to do, but how did that lead to satisfaction? Then, once satisfaction is found, how does it lead to sustainable income? For my baby boomer mother and father, the former was not so important, but the latter, they claimed, was everything. In the same breath, they would say that while happiness isn’t about money, it certainly helps.

My father retired from the US Navy, where he served for over 20 years and was promoted to senior commander in chief. He is originally from Peru and thanks to the Navy he was able to obtain US citizenship. The Navy was his way to win back a nation that gave him better opportunities than his home country, and in the process he was able to secure a steady income for his family and travel to over 50 countries. To be honest, I’m not sure he found passion in the Navy, but he found satisfaction in his service, and even if he didn’t find passion, he was satisfied. Although he had to spend most of his life away from his growing family, he is very pleased with his decision to join the Navy because, in his opinion, being a good father required sacrifice. However, if you asked him what he wanted to be as a child, he would say he wanted to be a pianist in a salsa band.

In 1992, the legendary actor-film director Rob Reiner came out A few good men which was later nominated for the prestigious Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Supporting Actor for Jack Nicholson. It spawned one of the greatest movie quotes of all time and brought attention to the incidents that inspired the film in the US Marine Corps. A few good men main character, Daniel Cuffey (Tom Cruise), is a member of the JAG Corps in the US Navy. Like many legal dramas, this is a kind of David and Goliath story in which the protagonist does not see himself as capable of achieving his goal, but does so as a result of his own intuition and intellectual skill. A few good men is my retired US Navy father’s favorite film.

Tom Cruise as Lieutenant Daniel Caffee in A Few Good Men
Image via Columbia Pictures

movies like A few good men and Devil’s Advocate gave my father and mother the idea of ​​encouraging their argumentative, talkative and indecisive child to become a lawyer. My parents knew the only way to reach me was through movies or 90s hip hop, so my days were filled with legal drama and I saw everything from 12 angry men to Blonde in law before I was 13. To be honest, they are all so good, but they are only so good because they tell a small part of what it means to be a professional lawyer. So, what I thought was passion was really just movie magic.

Cost of education and earnings

A woman in pink stands in court as a lawyer
Image via MGM

I wasn’t prepared for the price to outweigh the reward. Blonde in law famously follows Elle WoodsReese Witherspoon) when she goes to Harvard Law School to get her ex-boyfriend Warner back (Matthew Davis). While the movie mentions some important realities like the LSAT or the Socratic Method, it doesn’t mention the cost of law school tuition. Law school is notoriously expensive, with the average cost running into the hundreds of thousands.

After graduation, as in many graduate schools, there is a need to pay off loans, no matter how long it takes. There is a stereotype that all lawyers are rich, but entry-level earnings can vary greatly depending on what form of law they can practice or where they prefer to work. It could be a six-figure job or it could be a $30,000 job. Seeing this up close, I decided to pursue a Master of Laws rather than a Juris Doctor, but my master’s program was still a very expensive education.

The biggest issue that the movies didn’t prepare me for was work culture. Legal films usually focus on the courtroom, but rarely focus on the work that happens before a case begins, such as pleadings or the discovery process. Disclosure is a particularly important process because it is where both parties exchange facts about a case. This process is only occasionally mentioned in films. Lately in Inventing Anna, Attorney Todd SpodekArian Moayed) he is seen examining evidence at various points in the TV show.

Legal work requires insane attention to detail, which is very sensitive to deadlines. While deferrals may be granted, the goal is always to complete the work by the predetermined deadlines. Also, the movies don’t mention how little room for error there is in a lawyer’s job, so while I may have excelled in the courtroom, attention to detail was a skill to learn. I learned to pay close attention to detail, but this often drove me to despair. In general, the need for a perfect job, coupled with high workloads and tight deadlines, added stress to the workplace, making the office environment uncomfortable. This pressure escalated and I repeatedly found myself falling into depression and undermining my self-esteem. When I finally left the legal career for good, it was like a breath of fresh air. No matter how little money I made, nothing was worth coming back.

So I couldn’t deal with the reality of working in the legal profession, and that’s okay. The moral of this story is that no matter how you prepare for a career, very few things can prepare you for the reality of a career itself. Movies didn’t prepare me for a career as a lawyer in the tentative sense, but after trying it, I carefully researched one option that I now know exactly what I don’t want to do. Sometimes the only way to understand your passion is to explore options, including opportunities that seem outlandish, like being a salsa pianist.