I’ve had several careers in this particular lifetime:  scientist, military officer, teacher, lawyer, businessman, poet, author, and entrepreneur.  None of them, however, has had as much impact on my view of life as has the study and the practice of law.  Learning the intricacies of the Common Law system, inherited along with our language from our British origins, turned out to be a “transforming” experience in the metaphysical sense.  Once through the eye of this particular needle, I was no longer able to look at life’s situations and resulting relationships in quite the same way.  It is as though a third personality joined those little devils and angels depicted in cartoons representing conscience who supposedly sit quietly on our shoulders and come to life when we are about to make some decision.  “Do it! Do it!” says the caped and horned temperament in red urging the Pluto or Donald or Goofy in us to commit some mean act or low trick.  “Oh, no!  That isn’t right!” the cartoon companion on the other shoulder rebukes in angelic horror.  But I, and I think most of us with backgrounds in law, have this third advisor – mine is black-robed and bewigged – whispering directly into our ears, “And the law says . . .”   

This transformation has had both its advantages and its disadvantages.  Pointing out some dangerous condition at a friend’s home or place of business or some unenforceable or illicit term in a contract from some vendor doing business with my wife and myself have targeted me with just about as much anger as thanks.  Just as with the rest of life, some people appreciate well-meaning assistance and some do not.

One particular learned legal skill, however, presented me first with personal challenges and now with abundant blessings.  It’s known as “making the case.”

The “stuff” of every legal situation, whether civil or criminal, is the facts.  Each side has its beliefs about the other, each side has its claims, but, in truth, there is just one set of facts for the situation in dispute (read: “what really happened?”).  Our justice system is designed to give the best chance for the actual facts to be made clear, although admittedly it often looks like just the opposite is the intention.  Once the facts of the dispute are established (the responsibility of the jury or “finder of fact”), then application of the law is fairly simple (the responsibility of the judge).  With these facts, this is the outcome; with those facts, that is the result.  In short, the disposition of any case depends on a determination of the facts, which explains why parties to litigation argue so aggressively over the establishment of facts and about what evidence is permissible in their respective attempts to prove those facts.  Cases are won or lost on the basis of the finding of facts.

The job of the lawyers is to take the available evidence and weave a cohesive and believable fact-based story that puts their client on the right side of the law and the opposition on the wrong side of the law.  Evidence that appears to be inconsistent with this tapestry needs to be shown as untrue, irrelevant, or unimportant.  It’s not an easy skill to apply objectively as an advocate, and it can be particularly difficult to do with any degree of credibility if the available evidence doesn’t seem to support the conclusions one wishes to draw.   This process is what lawyers mean by “making the case.”

What I discovered a few years ago was that, at the same time that I was honing my skills at consciously “making the case” for my clients in my professional life, I had developed the habit of unconsciously “making the case” respecting the events and situations in my own personal life.

Unfortunately, my habit was to make the case against myself!  When I would bump up against a period when things seemed to be going wrong, it was easy for me to “make the case” that my life was a mess, that it had always been a mess, and that it would always be a mess.  Like an adult version of the “connect the dots” games we played as children, I would mentally string events that I believed had not worked out the way I’d planned or wanted.  Focusing on any seemingly negative event in the present, I could trace it back through my lifetime to other events that appeared the same or at least similar and thereby prove beyond a reasonable doubt that my life and I, therefore, was without purpose.

Having succeeded at that, I would look back over the landscape of a life in ruins.  The effect of these mental indictments was immediate, devastating, and long lasting.  So powerful was this force that even new “facts” in the form of events occurring in my life confirmed the case I’d already made.  I know now this was simply an application of what metaphysicians call the Law of Mind Action.  This law states “Things in mind create after their own kind” or “You get more of whatever you focus your attention on.”  Focus on the joy in your life, and you will get more joy.  Look for and see cataclysm, and you will get more cataclysm.  Being unaware of the Law of Mind Action or not believing in it has no effect on its power in your life any more than not knowing about or believing in the Law of Gravity will save anyone jumping into a deep chasm.

As I became conscious of my predisposition toward making a case against myself and a life with purpose, and as I became more aware of the evolutionary aspects of consciousness, I began gently, but firmly, to shift my attention.  This shift was away from looking for evidence of patterns that proved there is no higher purpose to my life to seeking evidence indicating that there is.  I began to see patterns in situations and circumstances that were evidence that my own personal life holds a piece of the whole in the higher purpose of things.  Ultimately, I began seeing my own story as all the evidence I would ever need to prove that my life has had purpose from the beginning.

As an example, I never seemed to fit in with “the guys” at work.  Even as one of several vice presidents running a large international software company, I always had the feeling that “over there” were the other executives and then “over here” was me.  Don’t misunderstand; I was fully involved in the operation and success of the company, but somehow, I had this strong sense of being separate, perhaps not fully accepted, and this was a source of anguish for me.  And the feeling was a familiar one.  It had plagued me through my early school years, during my time at the university, in the military, when working as a practicing attorney, and now in my business career.  I frequently felt isolated, and it was painful.  When I began to look for answers, I found them.

I was different.  I didn’t fit in with the other males rising to the top of organizations because my approach was completely different, although also successful.  I was not in accord with the image of business as war or a football game with winners and losers.  My approach was more yin and less yang, less testosterone and more feminine in nature.  No wonder the other men were uncomfortable around me!

Like some archeological anthropologist, out of this discovery of fact I found pattern. And the pattern gave me clues to a major piece of my life’s purpose, which now includes bringing a spiritually based and authentic human face to business.  Looking back from this vantage point, everything now makes sense.  As I stand on the threshold of the future of my life, and look back over a half-century, I can follow the line from any event as it makes its way connecting the dots through other events, until it comes naturally and inevitably to the very place where I stand today.

I continue to connect the dots, but now my mind’s pencil moves from opportunity to opportunity and from blessing to blessing, and this without regard to the nature of the events or any judgment I may have about them.

What I mean by that is that we can discover that it doesn’t matter whether we view an event as “negative” or as “positive.”  Every event in our lives, no matter how seemingly significant or insignificant is, in truth, a clue to our life purpose.  Certainly, we all want our experiences to be joyful, but most of us are smart enough to know that life just isn’t like that.  The smartest among us also know that all experiences, no matter how painful and apparently joyless, represent at least one dot in the game of finding and living our life purpose, and in that context every event is an occasion for joy.  Paying close attention to the experiences in our lives from the perspective of seeking to know our inner selves better and understanding our life purpose transforms the most dire situation into one of promise and opportunity.  As Dan Millman has already advised us, there are no ordinary moments.  

Five equidistant dots can be connected to form a star or a five-sided bottomless pit.  The choice is yours.  Make your case.  

©1999, Ric Giardina.  All Rights Reserved.

Ric Giardina is founder of Spirit Employed.