Powerpoint demands a deceivingly serious time commitment, and that particular set of slides, designed perhaps to demonstrate the merits of school desegregation, describe the Tarot or disprove the Hot Hand Phenomenon, was keeping me in the AIRport for hours on end. Having checked into my Mac workstation in early afternoon, 12 hours later I barely had moved, tweaking icons and centering font-appropriate text headers.

Although my computer had been the only one available when I first checked into the lab, the afternoon crowd eventually thinned, leaving the room's 100 workstations in the hands of the truly hard core. In addition to myself, those ranks included a fellow senior named Howard Finklestein, who was rumored to have recently landed a much-coveted job offer from investment bank Goldman Sachs.

During all of the hours I had been holed up at the lab, Howard had been dutifully typing at the Mac to my left. Then, at 3 am he paused. Turning to me, he asked, "Becky, weren't you already accepted by Harvard Law School? Why are you here?"

I copy/pasted a graphic, hit command-S and smiled, "Don't you have an offer from Goldman Sachs?"

He nodded. I shrugged. And we got back to work.

The vignette, while entirely true, perhaps makes little sense, and even today I lack a satisfying explanation. Beyond acceptance letters and job offers, we were driven by something else - - something bigger, something more potent, something from inside.

And thinking back to that night, it is that very thing - - that undefinable inexplicable internal entity - - to which I turn at times when real progress feels remote, and successes seem dwarfed by the efforts exerted on their behalf.

Theories be damned, it seems, carrots and sticks come in all shapes and sizes, and ultimately, being in the show rather than watching it can be a reward in itself.

It is an odd, uneven road that sets you back two steps for each three steps forward.