Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I think about halfway through law school, I realized that I wasn't interested in practicing law. I made the decision to continue in the legal field anyway, and since then I've been returning to that decision over and over again. Of course I'm not bound by a decision I made almost two years ago. At any time, I could leave and pursue a different sort of career. But starting over is has its problems as well.

Stay:

- Earning potential: My most significant asset at the moment is my law degree. I have the potential to earn higher wages in this field more than any other

- Tailored Resume: Because of my meager work history, I don't have anything to offer besides academic experiences and my undergraduate degree in political science is not very useful for finding a job. Neither is a B.A. in Math. So I'd be competing with any other newly graduated college student for non-legal jobs--any many of those new graduates can't find anything other than retail or waitressing.

- There is the argument that legal skils are useful for other fields. Good writing skills are certainly important. But besides that, I don't think the ability to "think like a lawyer" is considered in asset to most employers and, in fact, lawyers are treated with certain degree of mistrust.
- Counterpoint: There's the possibiltiy that I could convince potential employers my legal training should give me an edge over other candidates.

Go:

- Inevitability: Why spend time in a field you don't like? If I'm going to pursue a career in, say, industrial design, I should start researching industrial design. If I'm going to be a computer programmer, I should start learning programming languages. Why waste time?
- The answer is basically money. I don't have the money to acquire the training and education yet.
- How much money are you going to get in half-assed legal jobs anyway? If you make 30k a year (and that's an IF), you can save up 6k a year. Do you want to spend all your savings on school?
- Well, I also need the job experience. At least with legal jobs, I know where to start looking. I don't even know 1. how to find what I want to do and 2. how to start a career in that field.

- Anxiety: Starting over reduces all that anxiety you have about being a lawyer. However, this might be replaced by other anxiety about finding a new career path.

Plus there's the fact that I want to move in with Tom. I'm not sure how that even fits into the equation, but it does convince me that I should just get temporary jobs and not commit myself to living in Houston. I don't want to keep my options open forever, but I want to move in with Tom. I really, desperately want this and while I can't at the moment, I want to be able to with minimal adverse effects when I finally can move in with him.