Alan Levin writes:
After completing my “six-year Yale BA program” which started with the Class of 1969, and included a sojourn in the US Army and a stint in (fortunately) Korea before returning as a junior and graduating with the Class of 1971, I became a lawyer. I graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1974, and then spent 34 years as a labor and employment lawyer in Chicago representing employers. Our firm was tiny when I joined and had some 70 people when I retired from my law practice in 2008. I was fortunate both to have had a rewarding law career and to know when it was time for my journey to take a different path. I left my law practice for one reason—to pursue a dream.
As I approached age 61, I went to grad school full-time, at the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration, to get an MA in social work (clinical concentration). I am now a therapist. Three days per week, I counsel people of all ages, regardless of ability to pay, at a community mental health center (Turning Point Behavioral Health Care Center in Skokie, IL), and the rest of the time I’m building a private practice in Evanston, IL, with a component, drawing upon my career experience, targeting the distress of lawyers and their families, and the internal relational issues of law firms (CareForLawyers.com, under the rubric of our group practice, Evanston Therapy Group).
My transition from lawyer to therapist was catalyzed by my experiences, beginning 13 years ago, first as a participant, then as a facilitator, and then as a co-leader, with weekend and other group programs for men, designed to open men up to emotional self-awareness and deep emotional connection with each other. Our organization is non-sectarian and not-for-profit—Victories of the Heart (www.victoriesoftheheart.org). I consider myself to be lucky both to have had the opportunity to pursue a dream, and then to be able to make it real. In the seventh decade of life, I have finally realized that the rest of my life will be, and must be, about experiencing the meaning and purpose of life in relationship with other people, and being on a rich inner self-aware journey. The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know, and the more I am comfortable with and honoring of “not knowing.” After years of mistakes I made in past relational life, causing pain to myself and others, and providing an endless source of learning, I am fortunate to have a wonderful relationship with my wife, Diane, and my daughter, Rachel, a professional musician (trombone, both jazz and classical) who is getting married in August. At the age of 63 (by the time this is read), I am more excited about life, more able to live in the here-and-now, and more in touch with the open wonder of what each new day will bring, than at any time before.