Someone on the Solosez listserve posted a link to this article from the Harvard magazine on Samuel Williston, 20th century legal scholar, Harvard law professor and author of an authoratative contracts treatise. But though Williston worked late into his life, he suffered a nervous breakdown in his mid thirties that almost derailed his career. The article describes how Williston worked his way back and more poignantly, how he paid it forward, encouraging others through similarly dark times. From the article:
Nonetheless, [Williston] understood that his breakdown had been a central event
in his life and hoped his recovery might show those with similar
problems that “some achievement may still be possible after years of
incapacity.” His sense of having overcome a potentially career-ending
illness probably contributed to the serenity and compassion that people
so often remarked on. “Having had much trouble himself,” one faculty
friend wrote in 1951, “he is quick to share and lighten the trouble of
others. More than one colleague in a tough time has received an early
visit from him and benefited from his encouragement and understanding.”
Williston himself liked to tell people that his own career had been
like the path of a wobbling planet: he was proof that, however far off
course one went, one could “wobble back.”
Maybe your practice has hit a rough patch recently or you’re suffering from malaise or serious depression. We can never avoid the bumps in the road, all we can do, like Williston (or Weebles) is keep on wobbling back.
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