Sacrifices

I'm catching up on researching aliyah, being a lawyer, etc. in Israel. I have a lot of it in my email accounts, but I guess it didn't hit me until I printed it all out.

I know that I will be sacrificing a lot by going to school in and living in Israel instead of in America. There are more years to study (though the work is less rigorous), there might be a job to have, I might make much less money than a lawyer in America, and I am not sure who is going to pay for all of this.

The question is what is on the other side of the balance. I've been thinking about what I want in life in terms of my environment, because I don't know what law school will be like and I don't know what it's really like to be a lawyer beyond the little interning that I've done (good thing that I did!). I know that Hebrew makes me happy. I know that bits of Israeli culture make me happy; I especially like that they help teach me Hebrew, so that it's more intellectually stimulating and therefore rewarding. At times, however, this does not feel like a solid enough reason to go. Are these the things that will fill out my life? At the end of the day, will I feel like I'm working to live, and not living to work?

I don't know what will make me happy, and I'm not sure how to move on from here. I want to mark this point of hesitation as I try to figure out what I want in life in a shorter time than I should be. I know I will be figuring this out as I live in Israel, but I still feel like I should be making steps in a direction I am more confident about.