"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity". I have a theory that Seneca wrote this catchy one-liner either under the great stress of his exile or while running from the ominous shadow of the murderous Caligula. To me it has never made much sense, mainly because I always felt that 'luck' exists in the opportunity alone.
It should be, "success is what happens when preparation meets opportunity". Whatever the hell Seneca meant, luck seems to be in short supply, opportunity is the carrot at the end of the stick, and preparation is...(anyone?).
I've been searching for a TC for the best part of 3 years now; battle-scarred is a 1-word/2-word thingy I like to describe myself as. Like any other ragamuffin, I started out as a dreamer. I saw myself in the pin-striped suit, pink tie, thick slicked hair, silly pointy shoes, clean shaven face, walking fast around canary wharf, holding a satchel of some kind in one hand, coffee in the other, newspaper under arm, jogging up steps to get to big gleaming automatic slidy doors, gliding into a 40 storey building made of seemingly nothing but chunky bumper glass squares, clippety-cloppetying along solid polished marble floor tiles, under high ceilings, smiling at the beautiful receptionist, big someone&something&someone name-board above receptionist's impossibly blonde head, arriving at the head of a tunnel of elevators-either-side-of-me, floors still glistening, pushing a big button which illuminates instantly, angel's touch, big glass elevator arriving, seeing everything below me in a turbo-speed yet near-silent elevator, arriving at my floor where everyone goes silent and I bellow a resonating 'good-morning'. Right now is the first time I am revisiting this magical sequence in what has honestly been around 2 years.
Obviously, no matter what you do- accountant, rockstar, hunter, gatherer, mother, county friar, local shrubsman- idea and reality will forever be unharmonious. I graduated, did the GDL, then the LPC, now here I am. Through strife and experience, reality slowly bleeds into your red-ribboned conception of what legal life will be like. Having said that, 'slowly bleeds' is more like mass genocide when the LPC comes to pass.
I've had several experiences in the legal industry, I've studied what I need to, i'm a heavyweight champ when it comes to writing covering letters and CV's. No TC. Some might say i'm getting this that and the other wrong. Clearly I am doing something wrong and I feel this is entirely it- 'luck' only plays a part if you believe it will play a part; its a word, like 'shoes'. If success is when preparation meets opportunity, as one great man once said, then for me preparation is the hound of the baskervilles (i.e. obstacle- i'm seeing if this phrase could take off).
I'll be posting as often as I can on my experiences of the TC struggle. What's your hound of the baskervilles?...
