When I was a child, jury duty seemed like one of the most exciting opportunities in the world. You get to stop working at your day job and witness thrilling criminal cases that need your help and decision-making skills to enact justice. Now that I’m an adult, I’m slowly realizing that jury duty is somehow more boring and annoying than actual work, but it’s been a difficult process to let go of the fantasy of it all and do some deep unlearning around the idea of jury duty.
The conditioning runs deep.
Since I haven’t yet experienced it for myself, I still have the expectation that it’s gonna be like Legally Blonde or Law and Order. However, I’m told that most court cases are about contract disputes or petty theft, and very few end in a huge twist that makes everyone in the courtroom gasp.
But still, I can’t help but crave it.
On the other hand, I don’t know if I could even handle being part of a trial with high stakes. I wouldn’t want the pressure of making a decision that big, but I still think that it would be an experience that I’d never forget, even though lots of people tell me that it’s not that big of a deal.
Maybe I just want someone to listen to me, and five to 11 of my peers, for once!
I think that this probably goes all the way back to me being a theater kid in high school, if I’m being totally honest. I miss the stage! What can I say? Maybe I should get involved in community theater, or take a job in the entertainment industry. Then perhaps I wouldn’t be so interested in sitting so close to all the drama that’s happening in front of everyone.
I also want to meet new people, and making collective decisions would probably bring us all closer. And what if I make some new friends too? That would be so cool!
I think that everyone at their core wants to be a part of something bigger. Maybe the criminal justice system is a bad example of this, but what if my insight within a jury made a big difference? Okay yeah, I definitely have a lot more work to do.
