Lawyers are busy all year long. Now tack on the holiday season, closing the year strong, hoping for a good end-of-the-year review and even a decent bonus, you have a lot on your mind. Making sure to complete all of the year-end billing and holiday cheer can seem like an oxymoron. How to get everything done? That is the question.
Stress leads to depression that can ruin your holidays and even hurt your health. It is imperative during this time of year to be realistic, plan ahead and seek support to ward off stress and depression.
Ken Duckworth, MD, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness states, “I think a lot of people would say that the holidays are the worst time of the year.” Dr. Duckworth continues, “They’re just straight up miserable (for many folks), and that’s not only for people with clinical depression.”
Despite the holidays, Biglaw firms need to get all of the billing out and try to collect before year end. The year-end push demands long hours for everyone as they work to finish the year strong, especially attorneys practicing in AM Law 100 and AM Law 200 firms because law-firm-ranking is everything. Smaller law firms may find collections after Thanksgiving trickling in despite the fact that expenses continue, payroll, utilities, office expenses and taxes. Despite a slow-down of receivables, owners will be digging deep to pay for the holiday festivities.
For some lawyers, the holiday joy gives way to a bit of dread. It is as if you have another full-time job added on to an already impossible schedule. Everything for the year-end must be completed during the last three weeks after Thanksgiving. Although many attorneys won’t admit it, the social calendar, entertaining, parties, shopping, gift-giving is just one more thing on their to-do list.
When a lawyer feels pressured to buy a cart-load of presents, never knowing what to buy it can seem overwhelming. The holiday season often brings unwelcome guests — stress and depression. And it’s no wonder. The holidays present a dizzying array of demands — parties, shopping, baking, cleaning, and entertaining, to name just a few. When Christmas morning comes many feel so dissatisfied with the result, and so disappointed that they want to sit down and cry. However, they must force themselves to smile and console themselves that Christmas comes but once a year.
For someone who feels exhausted, anxious or depressed, it is easy to feel down and out, overwhelmed and a bit discouraged amidst all of the holiday cheer. A lawyer might easily beat themselves up for feeling down and out during such a supposedly joyous season.
Burt, one of my clients, said to me, “Pamela I don’t know what I would do without talking with you during these hectic weeks. I feel guilty because I don’t experience all of the happiness and the anticipation that my family seems to enjoy. I feel wretched, bloated and exhausted with too many parties, too much food and too much to drink. I give them all a big smile, but inside I feel numb like I’m just going through the motions.”
Everywhere you look people seem to be bright-eyed while exclaiming about the incredible gifts they have already bought for their loved ones. While some folks dread the fact that they must buy gifts, postpone their shopping until the day before, too late to purchase online, and they have no idea of who to buy for and worst of all, what to buy.
Believe it or not, a lot of the smiles are plastered on people’s faces, and the revelers are gobbling down as much food and drinking as much as they can to fill the empty hole they feel inside. They may dread the holidays as much as you do.
Family gatherings can be a source of tension. Although everyone wishes their families were like the Norman Rockwell painting, they are probably a mix between Norman Rockwell and the Simpsons.
People with depression, or who have had depression in the past, are especially vulnerable during this time of year. The stress of coping with holiday traditions, the forced gaiety can take its toll. (to be continued)
Attorney Life Balance Coach
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