Career vs Love: Which Would You Pick?

Published by Kelvin on December 27th, 2007 in Career Development, Work/Life | 24 Comments

While browsing through Penelope Trunk's blog, I came across an interesting post on how crazy her life became when she started writing two columns, a blog and started publicity for her book. Boy, could I relate.

At the height of my law school "career," I was a debater with the St. Thomas More Debate Society, a rising editor of the Ateneo Law Journal, a columnist for the Sunstar Davao and had a new, budding relationship with the girl of my dreams.

This was on top of the already heavy load of being a law student. I had a "career" and the love of my life, all at one time.

Yeah, I went a little crazy around then. I started sleeping less, never even bothered to communicate with my family (who all started wondering where I was always disappearing to), always studied at the last minute, ate tons of fast food and was irritable everyday.

The quality of everything I was doing suffered — lousy arguments when debating, stupid editing mistakes, haphazard studying, missed dates with my dream-girl — the works.

The worst was when I had to stay overnight in school to do the finishing touches on an issue of the Law Journal. It was Valentine's Day. I postponed a special date to the next night, only to realize that I had completely forgotten to get her a gift.

Her tears at dinner made me feel guilty for a long long time. Even more…

I want to say that was the turning point, that I realized I had to change my ways and focus on my relationship. Unfortunately, I didn't.

I had become a workaholic. I enjoyed all of my responsibilities and the perception that I was a rising law student — someone meant for greater things. It turns out I really wasn't, but you would be surprised at how far self-deception can take you.

In my head, I was supposed to be a great lawyer and have a grand career in the legal profession. I enjoyed this idea so much that I wound up neglecting my dream-girl. And even then, her tears weren't the turning point. Mine were.

The turning point came when my dream-girl wanted out of the relationship. There were plenty of tears then. Most of them mine.

My world came crashing down. My crazy life went crazier. Because of other controversies in my life, I even wound up leaving the Law Journal. And even worse, my studies suffered greatly.

To make a very long (and oh-so-tragic) story short, I realized that there were other things more important than one's career. I realized how the stress in my life and way too much work had changed my priorities and even changed the way I looked at things.
I had chosen my future career as a lawyer over the love of my life winding up with almost nothing in the process.

To coin a cliche, it is only when something is gone that you learn to appreciate it.

I'm not sure how, but my dream-girl and I did manage to get back together. It took a lot of hard work and a lot of changes in my life, but it also took a lot of patience and understanding in hers. She saw that a life in law (such as mine) demanded a lot, but that if we worked together, we could have a wonderful life together.

So we got back together, and in fact, we are already in the midst of planning our future. I've learned to slow down and focus on only a few things at a time. But best of all, I saw how much I love her, and that if ever I would be placed in a position to choose between career and love again, I would choose love in a heartbeat.

Sometimes when I'm with her, I steal glances at her face when she isn't looking and I think about how lucky I am.

Lucky in what? Why, in love of course.

Yes, I know that's a cliche too. So what? That's the way I feel. I can only hope she feels the same way too.

Choose love.