The Falling Down Professions: For lawyers and doctors, gold-embossed diplomas are no longer so golden.

Hat tip to my lil’ sis, Yani.

-From the New York Times

“The pay is still good (sometimes very good), and the in-laws aren’t exactly complaining. Still, something is missing, say many doctors, lawyers and career experts: the old sense of purpose, of respect, of living at the center of American society and embodying its definition of “success.”
In a culture that prizes risk and outsize reward — where professional heroes are college dropouts with billion-dollar Web sites — some doctors and lawyers feel they have slipped a notch in social status, drifting toward the safe-and-staid realm of dentists and accountants. It’s not just because the professions have changed, but also because the standards of what makes a prestigious career have changed.

“This decline, Mr. Florida argued, is rooted in a broader shift in definitions of success, essentially, a realignment of the pillars. Especially among young people, professional status is now inextricably linked to ideas of flexibility and creativity, concepts alien to seemingly everyone but art students even a generation ago.

“There used to be this idea of having a separate work self and home self,” he said. “Now they just want to be themselves. It’s almost as if they’re interviewing places to see if they fit them.”

TheStateOf . . . Falling Down. I (J) know very few lawyers that are actually satisfied with their careers, but I can’t figure out exactly why. Around my office, and nearly every law office in America, there is a stateof endless complaining and constant dreaming of getting out of law. Most of us want independence, but we lack vision and we’re scared to make less money. Or maybe we’re just spoiled.