Mark Shaiken > Quotes

“It’s time for me to come to grips with who I am and who I’m not at this point in my life. Those two change as we get older. Time to figure out what I know and what I don’t. Those also change. The practice of law interferes with those determinations sometimes.”
― Mark Shaiken

“It’s all about timing. When to go to law school. When to work your tail off at a law firm. When
to make the partnership run. When to go all in as a partner. And, inevitably, when to cycle out and move on.”
― Mark Shaiken, Automatic Stay a 3J mystery

“These dream careers that never happen are what happens to almost every kid. They are nothing more than the life-altering realizations of one’s limitations. The dreams are necessary to winnow down the available life choices. I was
– and still am – in love with each of my fantasies, but each one is a matter of the heart and none of them pay the bills.”
― Mark Shaiken, And... Just Like That: Essays on a life before, during and after the law

“There are some important differences between heart people and head people. Heart people dream. Head people implement. I like to dream although I was able to learn to implement as well during my life as an attorney. At this point, I prefer to dream. It is so much more fun and reward- ing and after a life of dreaming with, at best, mixed success, I am better at it now. Head people know the what. Heart people want to know the why. The why is very important to me. A law career is not much of a heart endeavor at all.”
― Mark Shaiken, And... Just Like That: Essays on a life before, during and after the law

“Still on mute, he bellowed in silence. No audience was forced to listen to him. Just Clarke in his little room screaming toward the heavens in silence.
Heavens? she thought. And she said softly, “No one in heaven’s listening. No one there’s gonna help him out.”
― Mark Shaiken, Unfair Discrimination

“And do you want to know what else I do a great deal of
the time? I dream. Dreaming always was, and always will be, good, at least for me. There is nothing wrong with adding to the long list of things I will not necessarily be able to do in my life. Dreaming about them makes me feel good. Coming up with new pipe dreams is not such a bad thing at all.”
― Mark Shaiken, And... Just Like That: Essays on a life before, during and after the law

“Bankruptcy – the safety net that society provides us when we get in over our heads and the gift of a fresh start – the new beginning of the rest of our lives.”
― Mark Shaiken, Fresh Start

“Now, the District was in the throes of slow but steady revital- ization and revival, driven on the backbone of the Kansas City African American community’s strong cultural roots, immense pride, art, community, baseball, barbecue, booze, and jazz. Historically segregated, but always shared by Black society. How different from the White society whose historical dividing line began just blocks away. Also historically segregated, but rarely shared.”
― Mark Shaiken, Fresh Start

“When people ask, who am I? my answer is that I am a real estate developer. Real estate is the Witherman way. Dirt courses through our veins. We have bones made of steel and glass, marble and granite, bricks and mortar, and concrete and wood. Some also say we have balls of steel. All good developers do.”
― Mark Shaiken, Fresh Start

“We live the lives we live, because that’s all there is. No meaning. No grand plan. No one pulling the strings; no strings to pull. Just a deep need to find a way forward without a great deal of help and no manual with directions.”
― Mark Shaiken, Automatic Stay a 3J mystery

“Life as a bankruptcy lawyer was anything but melodic, warm, and inviting sometimes. Her chosen field. Ain’t life a bitch.”
― Mark Shaiken, Fresh Start

“Let’s not dance around it: the truth, the whole truth, and noth- ing but the truth. Turns out, I don’t do well with that second truth. I’ll have to work on that in prison. It’ll give me something else to do and something to talk about in the weekly group get-togethers with the prison shrink.”
― Mark Shaiken, Fresh Start

“My Jewish Russian Grandma used to say to me, ‘Jacob, it’s a messed up world sometimes. But still, there’s a lot of good around. The good and the bad speak to us, although admittedly, the bad tends to yell more loudly and drown out the rest. But the good gets us through the day.”
― Mark Shaiken, Unfair Discrimination

“I just find music to be one of the great creations of humankind. It breaks boundaries, it brings people together, and it seems to transcend differences. It bonds us to each other. It does all of that without regard for whether it’s jazz, or rocka- billy, or blues, or rock, or folk, or R&B, or soul, or gospel, or country, or classical, or whatever your genre of choice might be. It does all of that, whether it’s Vivaldi’s violins, or Paul Desmond’s haunting alto sax, or James Burton’s twangy guitar. It’s important stuff to us humans, and it’s important stuff to me.”
― Mark Shaiken, Fresh Start

“It's ok to dream.”
― Mark Shaiken, And... Just Like That: Essays on a life before, during and after the law

“as I begIn my journey away from the law life, you should know, or already have figured out, that I think the law looms and it consumes, fumes, presumes, entombs; it lurks in the classroom, the conference room, the boardroom, and the courtroom; sometimes it assumes; it is often the legendary professional jealous mistress, hiding within a law firm with a nom de plume that sounds austere and thoughtful and august and distinguished... and sometimes, just sometimes, despite itself, it manages to bloom. It is larger than life. It makes few concessions for dreamers, and perhaps dreamers have no right to expect concessions. It took me a very, very long time to learn this: while there may be better ways to go through life, at the same time, there are many, many worse ways to go through life.”
― Mark Shaiken, And... Just Like That: Essays on a life before, during and after the law

“A period of protracted, repeated, profound, emotional turmoil, beginning sometime in the second or third year of the practice of law, and continuing off and on, mostly on, many times for the rest of the legal career, characterized by a rather significant, continuous, and oftentimes all-consuming, desire to explore alternative possibilities; to explore a change, any change at all, and to effect the change. These periods are typically coupled with a constant search for a new dream to pursue, potentially followed by additional periods of intense regret as dreams are not fulfilled.”
― Mark Shaiken, And... Just Like That: Essays on a life before, during and after the law

“Like so many attorneys, I careened from crisis to crisis, dream to dream, idea to idea, plan to plan, notion to notion, and never found the dream that led to the exit from the law firm life.”
― Mark Shaiken, And... Just Like That: Essays on a life before, during and after the law

“I really like playing my guitars. Y’know, they don’t call it working my guitars, right?”
― Mark Shaiken, Automatic Stay a 3J mystery

“I sometimes confused contemplation with dreaming; they were close cousins, but not quite the same. Contemplation was just the beginning of an idea in black-and-white and it could be done in public. Dreaming was all of the tentacles of a glorious alternative possibility, a full-blown plan in technicolor, and was best done in private.”
― Mark Shaiken, And... Just Like That: Essays on a life before, during and after the law

“Jazz certainly has the power to bring out the best in the melting pot experiment we call America.”
― Mark Shaiken, Fresh Start

“It’s time for me to conduct my life on some basis other than the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other plan I’ve been using the last few years. Some lawyers get to thinking that the ride will never end. But it always does, one way or another. The question is: will it end on your terms or will it end suddenly, with no terms?”
― Mark Shaiken, Automatic Stay a 3J mystery