I left town this week to visit a friend who goes to grad school at a school with a top ten law school.  I met some of the students at a party, and I can’t get over how much of the time I spent talking to them I spent bellowing the flames of my insecurity.  I couldn’t really talk to them as people because all I saw of them was competition for internships.

I’m back at school now and–suprise surprise–I can’t sleep.  I am thinking about how I don’t really like to talk to people anymore, and wondering if I should be worried.  Maybe, though, it has to do with all this comparing.

Over and again, I read or hear that comparing oneself with others makes for unhappiness, and so I let my mind trail off to what it might be like if I just let go and didn’t compare.  I am  snapped back to my insecure thoughts by the reality of the job search.

The fact seems to me to be that the whole job market is all about comparing, and I must constantly compare myself with others to make sure I am keeping up. Maybe this is too deterministic, and maybe one can not compare oneself with others while at the same time be compared with others and not have it bother him.   Maybe.  I’d like to know.  If you have achieved this, please comment!