Live who you are

For the uninitiated The Corcoran Group is one of New York's largest, sleekest, slickest powerhouse of high end real estate. The darth vader of residential brokerage. The masters of marketing at Corcoran have one ad in particular that always gets me.

It's a black and white photo of a casually good looking and carelessly wealthy couple sitting in the living room of a fantastic NYC apartment. The ad reads,

" Buying a home is a precious commitment - a life decision - and a matter of the heart. At Corcoran we make it our business to know what's in yours- and then to find homes that make your heart beat a faster. We work to understand who you are and how a home defines that and we help you weigh your options. perhaps balance your passion with a little objective logic. It's the best way to help you find a home- and make a decision you can be deeply happy with the rest of your life."

Good ad copy is always worth admiring. Even for those of you quasi-commies out there who despise the accumulation of wealth and the endless wellspring of social inequity that springs from the pursuit of said accumulation. After looking at that ad, don't you want to be "in contract?"

Maybe not. Maybe the thought of real estate has the same effect on you as Ambien. But the message is universal. Live who you are. Who knew that the masters of marketing of something as soulless as a massive New York City real estate firm would have provided the key to happiness in one of their ads.

Live who you are.

Like all the other keys to happiness; living who you are is atrociously simple yet painfully out of reach for most people. Why are they unhappy? Because they aren't living who they are. Why not? That problem is two fold. For the most part people have only a very vague notion about who they are and the ones that do know who they are usually try their hardest to not live that way.

With the exception of you double jointed circus folk out there, our fingers naturally bend in one direction. If you force them in the other direction it hurts, and if you force it hard enough the damn things just break leaving you in all sorts of agony. The same goes for living who you are.

Who are you?

At the very end of the day, in the moments before you fall asleep, when all the masks come off, on that tenuous bridge between active cognition and unconscious oblivion, who are you? I can assure you that whoever that person is, its definitely not the same person as the one who wakes up in the morning and begins a long chain of compromises between their own wants and needs while navigating the chaotic demands of the wants and needs of everyone they cross paths with.

Who are you?

A worker. A grinder. A gambler. A free spirit. A fighter. A writer. A jerk. A romantic. A bum. A lost soul. A cog. A drunk. A cheater. A liar. A lawyer. A salesman. A loser. A winner. A cheap bastard. A regular bastard. A poser. A douche. A baller. A teacher. A student. Ashamed. Amazed. A believer. A pillar. A fault. A weakness. A manipulator. Afraid. Alone. Awaiting.

Whatever you are, how often are you aware of who you are? Most of us are only aware of who we want to be and who we think we are. Well then how do you know who you really are?

What do you value and what are your values?

If you can identify your core values, the tenets of your being upon which there can be no compromise, no ambivalence, no confusion, no mutability and no negotiation then you have found your values. In this day and age there are more and more of us who are unable to identify those values even though we all have them on some level.

My core value?

Freedom.

The freedom to say and do what I want when I want is the one principle for which I will forsake all others. Love, morality, efficiency, logic, finance, family all take a backseat to freedom. This life, these thoughts, these fleeting moments of coherence are mine and I will use them as I please for as long as I can. Freedom always has and always will be the goal.

Financial freedom, spiritual freedom, emotional freedom, intellectual freedom. All of it. I want every last bit.

That is who I am. An unabashed unapologetic unrestrained pursuit of freedom.

Unfortunately I have not always lived my life in harmony with my core value. The result: anger, depression, frustration and stagnation. I know who I am and every time I try to be someone else, I suffer.

What do you value?

Security? Acceptance? Empathy? Achievement? Absolution? Recognition? Fear? Validation? Pride? Beauty? Truth? Wisdom?

Once you identify that core then everything else will become clear. Once your choices are aligned with your values then life's obstacles begin to crumble and the truer your alignment, the faster the crumbling. Eventually everything that is blocking your way will be swept aside like a handful of sand thrown into the ocean.

If that's the case then why on earth would anyone not want to live who they are? Sometimes we try to live who others want us to be or who we believe we should be or who we think that we want to be. Unfortunately you can only be happy when you are who you are. If you're still confused then I suggest you put a fish in the air and a bird in the water and maybe it'll become clearer.

As this year recedes into history and in between making elaborate plans for New Year's Eve take a little time to examine who exactly it is that you are. As we begin 2010 just remember one thing:

Live who you are!


Note to Corcoran broker: referral fees are always appreciated and will go directly towards my personal live who you are fund.

Who doesn't like floor to ceiling windows?

Deferred Gratification

Look back on the last 100 days of your life. For those of you with better records and powers of recollection, look back on the last 1000 days of your life. How many of those days did you spend doing what you wanted to do?

The logical assumption is that the days spent doing what you wanted to do should have resulted in a certain level of happiness. Then it would follow that if you were doing something you didn't want to do then you would be unhappy. Now what if you are doing something that you want to do yet you remain unhappy. Does that imply that you just want to be unhappy? But if you want to be unhappy and then you are unhappy, you are getting what you want, why aren't you happy? Maybe there is no causative loop between fulfilling our wants and being happy. Maybe there is also no relevance between my chain of logic and common sense.

It is extraordinarily easy to be happy. Think of everything that you want, both tangible and intangible, that you may not have yet; an Aston Martin, private jet, a job, a family, the respect of your peers, models, a $60,000 bottle of scotch, a winning mega ticket, a promotion, world peace, a new president, equality for all humanity, etc. etc. Think really really hard and visualize all of these unfulfilled desires, hopes and wishes.

Feel the sand under your toes, the sun warming your skin and a tropical breeze coming off of the ocean as your bank accounts grow faster than the euphoria spreading throughout your body as you realize that everything you've ever wanted is yours. Now hold this moment in your mind's eye to the point where you can almost hear the waves crashing against the shore. The world is yours.

NOW FORGET IT. ALL OF IT. NOW WAKE UP!! SNAP OUT OF IT YOU DELUSIONAL FOOLS!

Erase every notion of those wants from your brain. All you have is all you've got. You want nothing and you want for nothing.

Now aren't you just as happy? Probably not. This is why I'm not a therapist.

The original point was that fulfilling all of your desires may bring you happiness, but eliminating them should bring you just as much. Now is it easier to attain them or erase them? Although your mileage may vary I'd put my money on elimination. Who knew those Buddhists were on to something.

The sad part is that most of us do not have the wherewithal to reach either end of the spectrum. Instead we find ourselves endlessly struggling between our ever growing list of unfulfilled desires and our halfhearted attempts at adjusting our expectations to suit our dispositions.

What on earth does all of this have to do with deferred gratification? Well again the only reason why we compel ourselves to do things that we don't want to do; work, save, shower, floss is that we believe or at least we hope that at some point in the not too distant future that we will be able to take a vacation, splurge, sauna and have someone around who doesn't care that we didn't floss. (Sadly there really isn't any way around flossing) We trade the present for the future and cherish the past. We spend the first 25 or so years preparing for the next 50 so that we'll be comfortable and pampered in the last 25. It all seems pretty bleak. Luckily we don't experience life in these large swaths of cynicism. Life unfolds in a series of choices and it is those choices which bridge the distances between all of the yesterdays and tomorrows. Sacrificing 5 days of unhappiness for 2 days of moderate contentment seems like a very -EV play. Then again sacrificing 30 years of loneliness, infirmity and obesity for 30 years of meaningless puerile indulgences, excessive drinking and over eating doesn't seem like a very good move either.

Where does that leave us? Instant gratification is a recipe for eventual disaster, deferred gratification is a recipe for mind boggling mediocrity. For now I'll make due with walking around in chilly concrete and glass canyons wearing sweats while I figure out how to eliminate my penchant for tropical breezes and overpriced hooch.

Since it is the holidays let me leave you with an uplifting message. In case you still aren't sure what happiness is. At least you now have a valid metric for comparison. I can assure you that you were happier before you read this.

Merry Christmas everyone!