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So I'd had a rough day. I'd also heard the joke before, but this was a networking function, so I had to be on.Without missing a beat, I said, "Y'know what the problem with lawyer jokes is? Lawyers don't think they're funny, but no else thinks they're jokes." He laughed, enjoying the repartee.I drank a lot that night, hating myself for being a lawyer and hating myself for hating myself for being a lawyer. Surely, among the lawyer set, all ambitious and cocksure, I'm alone in my melancholy, I figured. I must be licking invisible psychic wounds. Besides, no one would have sympathy for my privileged-wealthy-white-guy whimpers.Indeed, we lawyers should be a happy lot. We're paid well, many of us earning six figures within the first few years of practice. We've got smarts; research suggests our average IQ is a not-too-shabby 120, for whatever that's worth. We're lucky in that our skill set can easily align with our social values, too, whether that means serving big business or helping refugees. And while everyone has a lawyer joke up their sleeve, parents are generally proud to say their kid is a lawyer. We should be winners in the pursuit of happiness.But we're not. Far from it. Reams of data prove it. "They are at much greater risk than the general population for depression," wrote Dr. Martin Seligman, a former president of the American Psychological Association, in his 2004 book Authentic Happiness.On Munchies: Being a Bartender Turned Me into a Relationship-Ruining Womanizer
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