This free-verse poem is about the emotional turmoil wrought by the process of writing my first novel, Hire Lernin’: An Idealist’s Quest Through the Realm of for-Profit Education. The novel is a fictionalized version based on my experience as an idealistic, newly-minted lawyer hired to be the academic dean of a for-profit business school in New York City in the late 1980s. Knowing nothing about the industry, the protagonist undertakes a two-year Quixotic quest to implement meaningful change in a corporate environment driven by the profit motive. The result? Unprecedented professional success for the protagonist coupled with some painful life lessons about personal strengths, weaknesses, and love.