Pick Your Favorite Title:

Dramatic Title: Life is Like a North Dakota Snowbank: You Can’t See Around the Corner

Rapper Title: Life is Fo-Shizzle Wacked n’ Sketchy. Yo.

Romantic Title: Whence I Discover My Life’s True Desire, I Shall Inform Thee Forthwith.

Rhyming Title: What Should I Do? My Work Makes Me Blue?

Here’s what’s going on, cliff-notes style: I went to law school, incurred a lot of debt, gave up a job in Minneapolis, and moved the family back to Fargo. I then began work at a very, very small firm and due to the structure (or lack there-of) I was unable to pay my monthly bills as I was paid primarily through a profit-sharing structure. This was a perfect job – other than it was making me inch towards bankruptcy.

I took another job, as a non-attorney, on a temporary basis. I took this job to give myself time to find another attorney position and to get my family out of the financial jeopardy that my student loans and piddly paycheck had put us in to.

Hit fast-forward 1 year.

I’m still here, as a non-attorney. I’m becoming complacent. I fear that I have lost any and all legal relevance that I may have gathered between the years of 2006 and 2008, while I was actively in the law game. I have applied for at least 7 positions during this time period. I received 1 interview, and was ultimately rejected as the agency decided to not hire anybody. (small confidence boost there)

I feel I have 2 options:
1) Stay here and know that I’m doing right by my family. I have an excellent paycheck, great time off, health insurance, a 401k plan – STABILITY in other words. Drawback: I’m unhappy and feel like time spent away from my kids is meaningless (other than to provide for them, blah blah blah).

2) (Inhale a Deep Breath) Start my own solo-practice law firm. Feel fulfilled all day, but risk the paycheck, health insurance, and 401k…
I really want to do #2. I have an offer to return to my former place of employment and assumedly can name my own terms –which would be I am in charge of my own paycheck, and I could pay “rent” for office space in the form of “x” amount of “free” work on their files per week.
But I am oh so scared. Like Snow White walking through the forest after the huntsman said “Run away and never come back” scared and all the trees are yelling at her and stuff.

Comments? Advice?