Embrace the Madness
L ike many sports enthusiasts , March is one of my favorite times of year .
I tune in for certain end-ofseason basketball games , schedule time to watch conference tournaments , and pain-stakingly complete at least one or two ( usually more !) brackets . A challenge is always to avoid picking too many underdogs ; a quandary lessened when doing so results in a nemesis ’ early loss . I plan meticulously . I get excited . I am confident in my selections — well , at least in some of them .
CHRISTOPHER P . LIGHTNER Alston & Bird LLP chris . lightner @ alston . com
And then the madness hits . It never fails . Fun fact : there has never been a verified perfect March Madness bracket . Indeed , the odds of correctly guessing the winner of all games is 1 in 120.2 billion . Yet many of us try , each year , to beat those odds . Or at least challenge them . And we inevitably fail . And when we do , most of us embrace it ; we may even enjoy it . We manage the madness .
The scenario above has parallels to each of our professional careers — both broadly speaking and with respect to discrete cases therein or seasons thereof . We prepare ; we diligently research issues and advise based upon our experience ; and we become confident . Inevitably , though , madness hits . A client acts adversely to a case ; a colleague acts adversely to our goals ; a family situation upends your routine . How many of us embrace this flavor of madness ? Enjoy it ? Manage it ?
I suspect that many , like me , will at first blush say that we manage it . Then clarify that we do so , as best we can . But do we really ? Or do we manage it merely by struggling against it and trying to change it ? Do we
4 February / March 2023