12. You Are Not Depressed, Sad, Feel Like You Can't Do It, and You Will Not Change Your Mind At The Last Minute; It's Ten and One-Half Weeks.

The Fear Factors: Fifteen Reasons Why Applicants Fail The Bar Exam.

People "Depress" Themselves Out of & Away From The Bar Exam & Slowly Into A State of "I Can't Do This."

The President of BP Oil is Depressed; People Experiencing The Devastating Effects of Haiti Are Depressed; Parents Who Must File Amber Alerts On Behalf Of Their Children Are Depressed; Men and Women Who Are Fighting In a War Have The Right To Be Depressed; Fans of LeBron James Have About Fifteen Minutes To Be Depressed.

But You, You Are Not Depressed. You Don't Have The Right To Be Depressed. You Are Preparing For An Examination That Reflects What You Want To Do For A Living. It is ten-weeks long. You are not studying in a bunker with live ammunition flying over your head. Yeah, you have loans, but the loan people will never come to your home, pull out guns and ask you to step outside while they search you and your family for the loan money. Yes, you are tired, but you are not the kind of tired where your hospital bed has been thrown under a tree for the last two months and you have no family, little medication and "grain" for food. As a matter of fact, you are in a position such that when you complete this July Journey, you could be in a position to help the BP President, the Amber Alert Parents, the People of Haiti and Katrina, and the Men and Women and their families who are serving in an active war on behalf of the United States. Maybe (maybe!) you will also be in a position to help folk in Cleveland get beyond "The Decision."

Seriously, though. Think about what you have to say about how you feel over the next couple of weeks. Certainly, you have a bit of angst. Yes, at times you don't feel quite prepared. In the morning you feel brilliant, by lunch you have wondered how you made it out of the second grade. At dinner, you are hoping the MBE numbers move up a little higher, but you don't back out even if you are only getting 10% of the answers. You don't know what is going to happen on game day. Your essays you own. Your MPTs you own. Your MBEs you own. The good, the bad, the ugly. It is all yours.

Often we play with the word, depressed. Oh, I'm depressed. We do it in an attempt to feel sorry for ourselves. It is a way to have a pity party, a brief respite from what we are trying to do. But often it is not depression; it is lack of preparation. Yes, I said it. And because we don't think we have enough time to catch up, we find ourselves blaming ourselves and blaming others for our failure to do what we need to do to keep ourselves on track.

THIS IS NOT A BAD THING TO DO. What I think is most important is that you recognize it. Call it what it is. Give yourself some time to allow it to pour through your body. Put a stamp on it. Then ease your way, as soon as possible into the next stage. Action. You are not a child. You may be cute, but you are not that kind of cute anymore. People are not going to feel sorry for you.

It is not that kind of party.

Now, you may say that you feel sad. You may say that you are tired. I cannot prevent you from saying these things. Why? I'm human. I say things like this, too. I know, however, it is a temporary condition. Even if I am not 100% certain that it is a temporary condition, I do know that I am responsible for myself. At the end of the day, I am always certain of that, so just like I fool myself into believing that I am in a state of the blahs, I, too, can fool myself into believing that I can lick the feeling, too.

I will bring this up again, about three days before the exam, because that is when another person enters your body and starts to make some ridiculous suggestions. I won't have that.

Not now, and not then.

You will take this exam.