The Mindfulness Blog

The etymology of the phrase "jumping the shark" is attributed to the old television sitcom, Happy Days (check out the photo of The Fonz water-skiing over a shark), and is colloquially understood to mean something along the lines of, "you're losing it"-- relevance, that is.

The antonym, or opposite, of "jumping the shark" is "growing the beard", which is colloquially understood to refer to an increasing credibility or qualitative improvement, following a specific incident.
Are you with me so far? Jumping the shark: Bad. Growing the beard: Good.

Which causes me to wonder whether interest in mindfulness, meditation and lawyer wellbeing (yes, they're interrelated) are jumping the shark, or growing the beard? Inquiring minds want to know-- at least, individual inquiring minds, if not institutional inquiring minds.

Many of the men and women who make up the legal profession would like to know-- the law firms that purport to represent those men and women? Not so much-- for the most part, they're just interested in making bank. Which raises an interesting juxtaposition: Most law firms seem to be jumping the shark, while many individual lawyers are growing the beard-- something's got to give.

Quoting the great singer/songwriter, Sam Cooke, "a change is gonna come", and my money (if I was a betting man) would be on the individuals, not the institutions of the legal profession. After all, the institutions will be run by the individuals, soon enough.

Sharks or beards-- that's all in good fun, but lawyer wellbeing is not. Mindfulness, meditation and lawyer wellbeing are not diminishing in relevance-- to the contrary, they're growing in both relevance and importance.

It's been a long time coming, but a change is gonna come!