Sense of Self.

The last few months have brought us news of the suicides of two very famous and rich people. I have often thought of suicide as a permanent solution to a temporary problem. As I read of Kate Spade's death, I wondered why. To those of us on the outside looking in, she had the perfect life. She was a designer whose name was worn on the shoulders of many women across the world. Even though she had sold her company, she profited a great deal from the sale.

We followed Anthony Bourdian around the world as he introduced us to new cultures. At the time of his death, he was in France filming another adventure. So what would make the father of an 11-year-old think he had nothing to live for and there was no hope for a better life?

For the past two years I have been working on educating attorneys about mental health, depression, and alcoholism. The ABA and many state bar associations have come to recognize the dire situation facing the legal profession with more and more attorneys across the country committing suicide, suffering from depression, and/or succumbing to alcoholism. I questioned what is the common theme for all these suicides. Recently, I heard the motivation speaker extraordinaire, Les Brown, say it. It is as if they were missing a sense of self. This caused me to examine what it means for an attorney to have a sense of self.

The first question that must be answered is, who are you? An attorney is just one of the titles that you have, it does not define who you are as a person no more than the title wife, husband, daughter, son, or parent. Those are all roles you occupy in this thing we call life. None of them defines who you are as a person. To determine who you are, we must examine what are your values in life? What brings you joy in the morning and what makes you cry at night? When you look in the mirror, are you pleased with the person you see looking back at you? If not, why not and how do you gain that sense of self that will help you get through the challenges that life will hand you?

You must first like yourself to be satisfied with the life you are living. You must be able to look at yourself and see the wonderful creation that you are to be able to stand in the face of adversity. I remember a time when I was not very pleased with the person I had become. I attribute this to all the negative things I had been told about myself as a child. When we are young, we believe what adults around us say to us about ourselves. If your...