Tag: Life

Things I’ve learned since living in New York City

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Last night, I had a difficult time sleeping. At the maximum, I probably tallied around 2-3 hours of sleep in total. I’ve been restless, stressed out, and agitated lately. A lot has been on my mind and I’ve been feeling like I’m going slightly insane. My scapegoat: New York City.

After having a heart-to-heart with my roommate, I was reassured that temporary insanity is quite normal when you live in the city long enough.

As a result of this realization, I made a short list of things I’ve learned since I moved here. It’s a random list, and most certainly on-going, but this is what I came up with so far…

– Every man for himself
– Know what you’re going to order at a deli, bar, coffee shop, etc. before getting to the register
– Personal space doesn’t exist
– One minute can make all the difference between being 15 minutes late or 15 minutes early
– It’s never been so easy to completely stop talking to someone
– The city isn’t as big as you’d think, aka, you can still run into people you know ANYWHERE
– Walking fast is necessary
– Dating sucks
– Buy groceries in New Jersey
– Happy hour is still expensive
– Cheap food, however, does exist
– There are a million free things to do and still have fun
– Have your metrocard ready prior to going through the turnstile
– Taxi drivers hustle you
– TIMING IS EVERYTHING
– It’s easy to feel completely alone even in a fully crowded bar
– Cockroaches are everywhere
– When looking for an apartment, you have to compromise no matter what (unless you’re filthy rich)

Again, this is definitely an on-going list. I’ve only been living in New York City for 8 months, but I’ve learned a lot about people and about myself. I’m still trying to figure it all out though.

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Routine

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After a mini-hiatus from blogging and running,  I’m now refreshed and ready to get back into a routine again.

It’s interesting how intertwined these two areas of my life are. It always seems that the amount of miles I run heavily impacts that amount of writing I produce (More miles = more blog entries)

I recently ended a 39-day running streak, courtesy of the Runner’s World Run Streak, that I participated in.

For the past few weeks, I was counting down the days until I could stop my legs from moving that fast. Once July 4th hit, I wrapped up my last day of the running streak with an easy 4-miles in Central Park. The next day, I relaxed more than I have in the past few months. This continued until the following Wednesday.

Taking a step away from running and writing gave me the time I needed to break out of my routine, kick up my feet , and not worry about logging any runs, re-arranging my schedule, or missing out on events due to my running streak.

It was nice to take a breather.

Alas, I’m back and in the right mindset again.

I’d say that the longer I stay away from running, the more chaotic my life seems to get. It’s definitely the glue that holds everything together for me.

Happy Miles 🙂

#RWrunstreak Update

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I have officially been running for 31 consecutive days.

Now that I think about, I’m not even quite sure why I decided to do this in the first place.

Over time, it seems that our reasons for doing things change over the course of the journey. Or maybe we just lose sight of the reasons.

For me, after a while, running every day just became second nature. Another daily routine, like brushing my teeth or eating a meal.

The Runner’s World Run Streak will be ending in exactly a week, however I’m not so sure if I’ll even end it just yet. Throughout my life, running has always been a form of therapy. A way to maintain a strong mental health. (And I’ve written about this before; when I stay away from running for a long enough period of time, I literally begin having mental breakdowns)

It’s always good to re-discover our reasons for the things we love to do. Without recognizing our reasons and motives for these things, everything just seems sort of meaningless. We need to feel that what we do has purpose. We need to feel that to attain happiness.

I never want to lose sight of the reasons I run. Knowing why I love running gives me hope that a feeling like this can last. A feeling of passion.

In life, we stray from many things. The love we feel in a relationship. The love for our job. Sometimes even the love of life.

It’s necessary to be in touch with our reasons for the things we love to do. It’s necessary to survive.

Every second, every minute, every hour

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It only seems appropriate to write about the inexplicable mystery that is “time” on the longest day of the calendar year.

The first day of Summer.

I’ve most likely already made some sort of reference as to how much I’ve realized just how precious every second of every minute of every hour is ever since I’ve moved into New York City.

Maybe it’s just more noticeable in New York City because our entire days are based off of a schedule that we cannot control; the bus, the subway, the train…public transportation in general. If you’re even a second late walking through that turnstile in the subway, you could miss your train to work, or to a friend’s house, or going back home. That very instance could drastically change the entire course of your day.

It’s impossible to trace back to the very moment that could have made everything different though. Instead, it’s a compilation of the tiny moments and milliseconds that we were early or late.

We’re always in a rush in New York City.

Everyone always has somewhere to be and other people are just an obstacle standing our way.

But the thing that really gets to me is the interactions that we have (or don’t have) with the people around us.

Call me an ooey-gooey romantic, but I always have that ongoing fantasy of bumping into the love of my life at a coffee shop or on the subway in passing or in Central Park.

For the millions of people who live here, it’s really difficult to take the time to get to know someone that way. That’s definitely something that I’ve been adjusting to over the course of time that I’ve been here.

My inspiration for this blog entry comes from the people whom I have met since I’ve moved here, but have completely vanished only a few months or weeks later after meeting them.

New York City is all about speed. Instant results. Everything has to happen fast because we can’t waste a minute of our time. I’ve learned this due to the short-lived collapsed relationships that I’ve had.

I’ve also learned that jumping too quick into anything never yields long-lasting results.

It’s true that every second of every minute of every hour counts. Making it last, however, now that’s a whole different story.

On this long, long first day of Summer, I wonder where I’ll end up or meet.

Spontaneity

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Lately, my unplanned days have ended up being my best and most happy/exciting days. And for me to say this is absolutely shocking (This is coming from someone who’s life is based on the very foundation that everything must be pre-planned, pre-known, and pre-meditated)

However, knowing as much as I could possibly know about myself up until this point, I’ve realized that trying to be too in control of a situation never works out in the end. It often just leaves me with high hopes that are eventually shattered into a heaping pile of disappointment. That, or, I mess things up before they even begin. Or get sick.

Yesterday marked my 24th consecutive day of running, (due to the Runner’s World Run Streak) but more importantly, it was also a 5K PR day for me.

My co-workers and I spontaneously decided to do a 5K race in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Originally, I had plans to attend a “Runner’s Happy Hour” event that I was invited to by another co-worker. Instead, I decided to change up my plans and run the 5K because honestly, I’d rather spend $5 on running than $5 on drinking.

I found that it ended up being the best decision I made all day.

I had no expectations for this race at all and I learned that when you make a spontaneous decision that fast, there’s really no time to over-think the situation or stress out about the outcome.

I’ve always envied people who would just “go with the flow” or “let things happen” I never understood how someone could live like that. I was always a believer in “If you want something, go get it”, and that’s how I’ve always done things. That’s how things have always worked out for me in terms of success.

Yet, I now know that this mindset doesn’t apply to every situation, especially when it comes to having fun.

Yesterday, I went with the flow and let nature take its course. I didn’t stress or worry, and I ended up placing 1st in my age group and running a 5K time of 21:30 that I never imagined I could get back to after high school. It was a small restoration in my confidence and my overall quality of life.

A re-occurring theme that I am now settling on for this blog is balance. It’s a skill that I’ve been trying to grab a hold of and will continue to grab a hold of for the rest of my life. It’s necessary.

Sometimes you need to be serious, and sometimes you need to be fun. Not too much of one or the other.

So, I will leave off with this quote:

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all” – Helen Keller

Chapters

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“I think I’ve always been half out of my shell and half in. Sometimes I can be extremely wild and sometimes I can be extremely shy. It just depends on the day” – Emile Hirsch

I watched the movie “Into the Wild” tonight.

For those who haven’t watched it yet, I recommend that you do.

I was recommended to see it by a guy that I dated for a brief moment in time. After watching it, I have a much better understanding of his perspective on conformity and society.

In the movie, the character (played by Emile Hirsch) leaves everything behind to lead a life free of material possessions. He goes into nature, far from any form of civilization, to be with himself.

I don’t want to spoil the movie for anyone, but basically in the end, he comes to terms with his own self-actualization and discovery.

I’m not going to go off on some long tangent about the foolishness of the human race, but I will say that people are getting more and more bored with their lives.

After the invention of social media websites that refrain us from actually making personal connections with people, we’ve become jaded. We’re always in the know when it comes to other people’s personal lives.

Why reach out when you can just secretly snoop? Why say anything at all?

But we do.

We say everything over the internet. So much to the point that nobody cares to hear it anymore. I feel guilty even publishing my views via WordPress. But of course, I’m conforming to the norm of getting your voice heard through the internet.

It has to go somewhere right?

Similar to the character in the movie, I sometimes feel the urge to pack up my things and run away from people. Run away from everyone I know and just go somewhere completely new. But what good would that do me if I haven’t even closed the chapter on where I am now?

I think we need to learn how to face our fears. Stare them down and confront them. Overcome our feelings of uneasiness.

I’ve struggled for a long time with finding inner-peace. I would continuously look for happiness from being in a relationship or accomplishing a goal or something along those lines.

I’m still on that journey to self-discovery. I know I can’t run away yet. I’d be leaving an entire chapter unwritten and I guess this is why I’m even documenting my life in this blog.

Just filling in the chapters.

New Goals

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If there’s one thing that I can say I truly loathe, it would have to be stagnancy. Well, there are actually a few other things that I also strongly dislike, but I’ll leave those unmentioned. Right now, I’m focusing on stagnancy. I’m not religious about horoscopes or astrology, but I can agree with the description given for my astrological sign, which is Sagittarius. According the Daily Horoscope App on my iPhone, it describes me as this:

“Restless energy and the need for personal independence keep a Sagittarian moving in many directions. They become experts at adapting to the culture or climate of their immediate environment. Always ready to travel for business or pleasure (and sometimes because of an overwhelming urge to escape) Sagittarians are all too willing to break free of the confinements of responsibility and work”

Usually, I find horoscopes to be vague and applicable to almost any scenario, but in terms of personality traits, this pretty much hits the nail on the head for me.

I hate being stagnant. I get bored easily. I hate staying in one place. I need to constantly be moving or mentally engaged in something. I embrace change.

Side note: I don’t think I have Attention Deficit Disorder, but I’ve never been tested for it.

I think it’s mostly the way I am as a person. I enjoy being active. I hate to rest. And this is probably why I get sick so much. I hate to slow down (see blog entry “The Sick Girl Journal”)

When an area of my life starts feeling stagnant, I begin panicking. When multiple areas of my life start feeling stagnant, I completely lose my mind.

My half marathon/marathon training is now over and I have no immediate races coming up in the near future, so in terms of running and exercise, I’ve just been maintaining my fitness. As the days go by, I’m starting to get an itch to train again. I need something to look forward to.

But, that’s just one thing.

Now, for the big one: My career.

This is where most people usually start to lose it.

Feeling stagnant in your career can definitely drive an individual to temporary insanity. On a scale of 1-10, I’d say I’m at an 8.5

In approximately 3 weeks marks my one-year anniversary at my company. I can’t even believe it’s already been a whole year since I graduated college. I’ve accomplished so much in this past year.
As I look through my Facebook News Feed, I’m seeing an abundance of graduation pictures and status updates from friends. I feel a tidal wave of nostalgia come crashing at my face. I’m taken back to that moment for me and I feel happy. I feel happy for my friends who are graduating because they are embarking on a new chapter in their lives. For me, I’m already in that chapter and I’m eager to start another already.

Throughout college, I’ve always had an upcoming assignment that would dictate my future towards graduation- an exam, a paper, a presentation.

Similar to college, work is like that too, only you’re not graded.

When it comes to excelling in your career, you have to create it. You have to set a new goal. Apply for a new position. There are no professors who guide you. It’s in your hands. It’s in my hands now. I’ve been brainstorming ways to leverage writing into my career. I know it’s going to be tough and very competitive, but I’m willing to do what it takes.

Setting new goals in life is necessary. Similar to how I train for a race, I hate to skip a beat and I hate to slow down. I carry this mentality with me throughout my work and my life and pray to God that I get where I want to be.

Hindsight Bias

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I learned about the concept of “Hindsight Bias” in a Social Psychology class that I took in college. When my professor was giving examples of situations that applied to this concept, I couldn’t stop laughing and nodding my head in agreement. To this day, I still can’t help but whip out this term whenever I catch myself doing it. It reassures me that the thousands of dollars I spent on college haven’t gone to waste.

In a nutshell, the concept of “Hindsight Bias” is defined as looking back at a past event and convincing yourself that you already knew how the situation was going to end. Essentially, you say to yourself, “Well I knew this wasn’t going to work out anyways”, when in reality, you had no idea what was going to happen. However, given the information you know in the present, it comforts you to know that you were in control all along. This saves yourself from owning up to your own poor judgement. It’s a defense mechanism.

I do this a lot to protect myself and keep myself happy.

I had a lot of time to myself after running the Big Sur Marathon in California last Sunday. I took this entire past week off of work because I needed to recuperate and I was also in desperate need of a vacation. I spent half of the week remaining in Monterey while the rest of my co-workers went back to the East Coast to return to work.

During this time, I reflected a lot on my marathon, my life, my friends, my future, growing up, etc. I definitely needed this time to collect myself and my thoughts.

When I looked back on running the marathon, part of me still couldn’t even believe that I had done it. The other part of me wished that I had tried harder. I kept tracing back to every mile and trying to figure out why I didn’t go any faster. After I finished the marathon, I found out that me and my co-workers all finished within only several minutes of each other. I kept telling myself, “If only I stayed with one of them, I could have easily ran under 4 hours. If I only knew that they were so close, I would have gone faster”

Of course, there’s nothing I can do about it now. But now, I’m even more determined to run another marathon with a significantly faster time

I keep going over in my head about the things that have affected my training and the lack of miles that I logged. It saddens me that I can’t just be satisfied with saying that I completed my first marathon in the time I ran, on one of the toughest courses in America. Instead, I’m beating myself up for the “should haves” and “could haves”

I don’t want to do that anymore though.

I got back to New York City around 10:30PM on Wednesday night. I didn’t get to my apartment until about midnight. Fortunately, I had the next two days off of work, so I didn’t have to worry about waking up early.

I continued a lot of my heavy thinking. I thought more about where I want to be in 5 years and what I really out of my life (all the normal things that people in their mid-20’s worry about)

It’s funny that the moment I got back to New York City, I just wanted to be back in California again, yet when I was in California, I couldn’t wait to go back home. It’s the ‘grass is always greener’ mentality.

I started saying to myself, “My life would be so much better and more relaxing if I just lived in California”, but then I realized something: If I keep on chasing things and places and am never satisfied with what I have or where I am, then will I ever be truly happy?

This past weekend, I spent a lot of time with my friends and had the time of my life.

I realized that what I need to learn is how to be happy with where I am. As Jon Kabat-Zinn said, “Where ever you go, there you are”

No matter where I go or how far I run away from home, I’m still myself and if I’m not happy where I currently am, I won’t be happy anywhere I go.

Hindsight bias (although sometimes necessary) can be dangerous. Look back on a situation if need be, but move on. Be happy with yourself. Be happy where you are. Be happy as much as you can be.

Burned Bridges

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There’s something about moving to a new city that makes life so much more exciting. You get to experience a new environment. You gain opportunities to meet new people. When you leave everyone who knew you behind, you get to be anybody you want to be; far from who you were when you were home. You get to re-write yourself.

I’m back home in New Jersey for Easter weekend and as much as I hate to admit it, I can’t deny the fact that it feels great to be back here. There’s a level of comfort that you can only get when you’re at home. It’s that sense of familiarity that consumes us. It’s the feeling we get around the people who watched us grow up before we became who we are. That’s what I like at least.

Every time I come home, I can always expect the same thing because it’s the same thing every time I come home. Nothing here has changed and I think that’s why I left. Everything was always the same. I got too comfortable.

Whenever I come back, I think a lot about people from my past. I do this on my own anyways, even when I’m at my apartment in the city, but it happens more so when I’m back in Edison. It’s because of that familiarity. The roads that I used to drive on, the school that I went to, the park where I used to play. All of these places are linked to memories and people who once meant a great deal to me at one point in my life. I always get sad looking back on it because as I got older, I learned that it’s so easy to lose people. We grow up. We change. We go different paths. There’s a part of me, though, that really misses those people. This can be said for all people at the different points in my life, the ones who have been long gone and the ones who I’ve recently lost. They’ve all made me who I am today. I thank them for that.

It’s hard for me, sometimes, to accept the fact that you can’t just pop into someone’s life un-announced anymore. I get such an urge to contact people who I haven’t spoken to in months or years. Every time this happens, a rush of spontaneity overcomes me and I start this text that I end up never sending because I suddenly realize, we don’t even know each other anymore.

There’s an episode of “How I Met Your Mother” which coins the term, “revertigo” which is when you go back to being the person you were around someone who you used to know from your past. The reason for this is because you can’t really go off anything else. When you get to a certain point where catching up hardly seems possible anymore, you can only draw on shared past memories. There are a lot of people in my life who I could go without seeing for months, but once we reunite, it’s like we had never been apart for a day. But then, there’s people who I just have nothing in common with anymore. There’s nothing to say, only old jokes to stir up some laughter for a brief moment. These are the people I lose.

I’ve recently started noticing that every time I come home now, there are less and less people that I have an urge to contact. I can’t tell if it’s me, or us, or life. But I always ask myself, “At what point, do you just give up on someone?”

All relationships are hard work, whether it be a friendship or a romance. Someone has to care though. It has to work both ways. So what I wonder is this:

Do you stop trying once you’re the only one who is?

I’ve gotten to many points lately where I’ve realized that it’s just me on my own. Now that I’ve come back home and I can’t think of a soul to tell that I’m here, I wonder, am I done losing everyone from back home? Have I strayed that far since I moved to New York?

My pride gets to me sometimes. I think, well if they’re not contacting me, then I certainly shouldn’t contact them.

That’s how you burn bridges.

I feel that I’ve burned a lot of mine and when I go back to the island of Manhattan, there will be no way for my friends to get to me anymore.

Lessons Learned

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It’s 11:16PM and I want to get this entry written before midnight when it’s technically Tuesday because I don’t want to go more than a day without blogging.

I had been thinking all day about what I wanted to write about. Instead of coming up with new material, I’m going to re-publish something that I wrote in my journal a while back. This may sound lazy, but at least give me partial credit because I was originally going to publish it as a page instead of a post.

Back Story: I have this light purple journal which says “Journal” on it (Yes I know, I am not discrete at all) I bought this journal from Barnes & Noble during the Summer of 2011 when I decided that I needed to start writing again (to record personal thoughts, experiences, etc.)

This journal entry was written at 12:22AM on August 22nd, 2011. I don’t know what motivated me to write this, but I must have either been in a really great mood or I had some sort of grand realization about my life. Anyways, this was what I wrote:

“Lessons Learned:

#1 Whenever things seem really bad, know that it will always get better

#2 Never let one big fight end a friendship

#3 Put your pride down and ask people to hang out instead of waiting for them to ask you

#4 Before you open your mouth, think about whether it will make the situation better or worse

#5 Always be nice to people, no matter how awful they seem to be – you never know if they’ll be important to you some day

#6 Give everyone a chance – don’t judge on petty observations

#7 Try to see the bright side to every negative experience – there is a lesson in it

#8 God really doesn’t give you situations you can’t handle

#9 Be thankful for your family

#10 Be thankful for your friends

#11 No matter how someone exited your life, good or bad, they have made some sort of impact on your life – so appreciate them

#12 Alone time can be a good thing. Learn to be with yourself

#13 Make use of every minute of every day

#14 Do things that make you happy

#15 When you feel sadness or anger, take it in and then let it go

#16 Smile as much as you can

#17 Do not eat until you are stuffed to the point where it’s hard to get up, eat only until you are satisfied. It’s okay to not finish your food at a restaurant

#18 If you don’t feel up to it, don’t work out. Stretch instead

#19 Don’t stare at people too much, they will eventually notice

#20 Stay out of gossip about other people. Saying negative things about other people is just a negative reflection of yourself

#21 Know when to stand up for yourself or when to just let it go

#22 Always say “please”, “thank you”, and “you’re welcome”

#23 Never let anyone make you feel inferior or incompetent

#24 Know your limits – to everything. Drinking. Eating. Exercising. There’s nothing wrong with testing yourself, but you’re only human

#25 Enjoy beautiful scenery and environments. The world can be a very beautiful place

#26 Don’t get embarrassed

#27 Stay creative in as many ways as possible

#28 Work towards your goals and then meet them. After that, make new goals

#29 Get enough sleep

#30 Always pee before you leave the house and always pee when you have to pee

#31 If you have no one to tell something to, write it down

#32 MONEY ISN’T EVERYTHING

#33 Don’t over-work yourself

#34 Beware of stress- it really does quite a number on your body

#35 Balance is key

#36 Relaxation is important. If you feel overwhelmed, drop everything and BREATHE

#37 Don’t feel sorry for yourself – you are wonderful

#38 Stop saying sorry for things that are NOT your fault

#39 Don’t make yourself the victim – bad things happen to people every day. Just move on

#40 Be happy with what you have

#41 Stop going on Facebook so much

#42 Not everyone is going to like you, but that’s okay. They just didn’t take the chance to get to know you which is their own loss

#43 Be enthusiastic about everything”

Now I know that was a lot to take in, but for me, I’m glad that I wrote those things down and am now re-writing them in this blog.

Looking back on it, I now remember why I wrote this.

I wrote this right after I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, the Summer before my Senior year of College. It was a really difficult time for me and I had a lot that I was dealing with at the time. I wrote this list almost two years ago and it’s amazing to see how many of these lessons I have actually remembered and applied to my life. I’ve grown a lot since I wrote these, but I’ve also neglected a lot of these things. It takes time to change, but little by little, change will happen.

Hopefully this helps some of you out in your daily struggles, as they have helped me.