MIA

I've been a little busy recently. My last post was in August I think. Wow, I suck.

But for good reason - I've been working. Working like a true New Yorker. And it feels great.

New York is a city of workers. Hard workers. People who love working, love their jobs, can't imagine life without the 9am rush hour. People come to New York to be around the people who are DOING IT, as my father likes to say - If you can think of a career, you can find it here, and you can probably find five hundred other people who are trying to succeed at it as well.

Most people I know who move to New York from somewhere else say the same thing: "I wanted to see if I could make it here." They come from all over because they want to be little fish in a big pond, and have the freedom to really swim.

After all, it's not just a drive to succeed, although that's part of it. It's a drive to be better than you are today. The environment is high stress, low attention, and no tolerance for failure. There are at least a hundred people behind you who want your job, and if you're lucky enough to be working in the field of your choosing, then you better step it up. And you can, because you are constantly surrounded by people who more accomplished, more experience, and more successful than you, so there is never a stopping point. There is no day when you wake up and think "Well, I'm pretty much the best at this, I guess I can just sleep in." You will never be the best, and that's what makes it worthwhile - there is no glass ceiling here, so you can always improve.

It's kind of marvelous, working in New York. It's not, ultimately, how I want to live, but there is something incredible about being surrounded every day by people who love what they do, who are fed by it; who come early and stay late, who care. They care desperately. The whole city is powered by love - it's not the love that powers San Francisco, but it's invigorating and stimulating none the less.

I've been caught up in it, because I, too, care about what I do. And I want to be the best that I can be. I'm eager to impress and to prove myself, and to grow and learn, and I feel infinitely lucky to be working in my field in the center of it all.

It is, however, nice to take a break.