With exam season quickly approaching, assignments, readings, and extra-curricular responsibilities beginning to pile-up, and stress levels around campus reaching critical mass, I think it is important for everyone to take a deep breath and provide ourselves with some perspective.
The importance of our performance as students in law school cannot be overstated, yet, to succeed academically one must be in the right state-of-mind – one that is calm and confident, rather than nervous, on-edge, and over-wrought. Anxiety and self-doubt can shake even the most well-prepared, leaving one second-guessing themselves in the most critical of moments. It is a pernicious challenge, that illogical yet ever-persistent anxiety, but one that can usually be allayed with some mind-over-matter thinking. Or better yet, some perspective.
First, consider that on the planet today there are roughly 7.5 billion people. Out of these 7.5 billion earthly inhabitants, only 37 million of us are lucky enough to be Canadians. And for those readers who are not Canadian, you find yourselves studying in Canada regardless – so count yourselves in addition to the 37 million luckiest people alive! Thus, right off the bat, we have a major win for the nerve-wracked Osgoode student. Better even, out of those 37 million people lucky enough to call Canada home, only about 300 – give or take – earn acceptance into Osgoode Hall Law School every year. This includes you! So, clearly, despite whatever anxieties you may have at the moment, it should be obvious that you already have a substantial amount of fate (and luck, and skill) on your side. Someone is clearly pulling for you where it matters, be it a guardian angel or something else, and so you should take solace in this fact!
Next, consider the probability of being lucky enough to attend law school in the year 2019. What are the odds? The universe is at least 13.8 billion years old, our planet Earth is at least 4.5 billion years old, modern-man has been around for at least 100,000 years, and human civilization for at least the last 10,000. Further, Canada as a sovereign-state has existed for over 100 years, as has Osgoode Hall Law School. How fortunate then, that we were all born in a time and place that allowed us to eventually be able to attend law school at the start of the information age – with heated classrooms, electrified buildings, a stable food supply, a relatively peaceful world, and – the internet. Forget growing up in the stone age – can you imagine how difficult law school would have been had we all been forced to muck around the library on a day-in-and-out basis in order to accomplish the most simple of tasks? What in the world would the contemporary law student do without Google or Canlii? Fellow Osgoode student, take this as another victory!
So, as you can see, doing even the most ground-level and broad-based of perspective exercises, one can gain insight into just how well one is really doing in the big picture. Take the victories where you can, even the smallest and most obvious of them, and allow the missteps and misfortunes to roll off your back like rain off a fall-jacket! We are all lucky to be here – the rest is just icing on the cake. My name is Corey LeBlanc, and that’s just my opinion.