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1. Understand more about finance and investing. The more you learn (and practice it even with the smallest of amounts!), the more financially secure you will eventually become in the coming years. And not being penniless usually does ward off serious depression more often than not. I spent wayyy too much time complaining about my 'low' salary that has been haphazardly distributed among high end restaurants and bars across SoBo in the past decade. It could instead have been in the stock market or in MFs! Go figure.
2. Focus on the work that is in front of you instead of thinking about the future. And execute the immediate deliverables with care and perfection. In the corporate law space, whether thats a 3-page NDA or the execution versions of the SSA / SHA in a large transaction, just apply the same yardstick of focus. Don't worry about the pipeline for the next month or the next year. The anxiety that lies in the question, "What next.." has destroyed a lot of law careers. That's no exaggeration.
3. Clean your clothes cupboard and study area as often as you can, and especially when you are completely stressed or depressed. Just keep a mental note of your mood before and after this exercise and see for yourself what happens.
4. Read the newspapers (like the ET, FE, BS) instead of the internet news. The latter is an endless wormhole of bad news, disasters, catastrophe's, whining columnists and 'upcoming' actors / stars finding innovative ways to hide their joblessness. All of that is bound to negatively skew your outlook. The former (i.e. the paper) does less damage to your outlook on life.
5. NOTE: this applies when the pandemic is 'over' - Friday, Saturday and any other long weekend socialising you do should be confined to folks outside law or those who aren't in direct competition with what you do. Most lawyer social events (formal and informal) are a drag and listening to some boastful sloth blowing his own trumpet on some despairingly pedestrian advice he gave an unsuspecting client is as bad as spending hours on Social Media. And the alcohol (whether paid or free) is largely useless in times like those...
6. NOTE - this applies to folks who are working in their offices (and not WFH) - stay away from the cigarette breaks with the 'usual suspects' / purveyors of office gossip. Other than gathering pointless grapevine that's anyway going to reach your ears on your desk (hey its the grapevine, remember?), it's a consistently mundane line of crap that should be given no headspace.
7. Keep planning a trip / holiday / outing / social event (whatever makes you happy outside of law) for each month. There should be something to look forward to at the end of the month. Even a simple evening with an old friend or a visit to a favourite restaurant is good enough. In fact if the actual event is cancelled / a letdown / a washout / no-show-because-boss-wailed-like-a-baby-an-hour-before, the planning and anticipation of that will anyway distract you from negative feelings of life being unfair. Basically find a way to keep yourself busy and occupied.
Enjoi.
1. Don't benchmark yourself with your peers/batchmates/friends.
2. Delete IG/FB/LinkedIn
3. Do some exercise/sports
4. If you live with fam, spend more time together. If you live otherwise, get in your partner or non-competing friend in.
5. Do something that you've brushed under the carpet for long (YT channel, blog, entrepreneurial venture, sing whatever)
6. Focus on work
7. Talk to confidants and try getting to the underlying reason behind anxiety.
Life isn't unfair. It never is. In fact, life is the fairest of them all, the early you accept, the better for you.
Most measures I did were temp, once I got back up, IG LinkedIn don't bother me anymore.
And yes, sab theek ho jayega. Acho ke sath acha hi hota hai. Take care my friend.