Sunset

I asked my sister, "Where do people go when they walk off into the sunset?" She promptly replied "Well I suppose at some point they'd hit the ocean." Apparently snark runs in the family.

Today was a beautiful day in NYC. The third one in a row actually. The first one was dismissed as a fluke, "ehhh it's probably gonna snow again tomorrow." The second one piqued the curiosity of the natives, but Noo Yawkas don't take the bait so easily. "Oh yea buddy, let's see you do that again." By day 3 the balmy 60 degree weather, unblemished blue skies and unabashed sunshine finally broke through our thick skins and it looked like spring was well its way. People walked with a bounce in their step, even the occasional furtive smiles at strangers happened without a single "Whaddya lookin at?" This is the best time of year in the city, the first whispers of springtime after a long and brutal winter. Hope is rekindled in the few short weeks before it gets so hot that 5th avenue ends up melting onto your shoes and everyone smells like 3 week old chicken and rice.

On this majestically beautiful day in New York I found myself standing next to a garbage can on a street corner in Soho seriously contemplated throwing my phone away and walking into the sunset. After dumping the crackberry I would stroll into Wachovia, TD and Bank of America liquidate everything and then dump the wallet and start walking. The handicappers in my mind immediately began calculating the over/under on how long it would be before I cracked and went running back to the garbage can to dig out the phone. The sharp money had it at about 3 minutes, but it would have been a exhilarating three minutes. (That's what she said. waka waka)

Leave the company, the clients, the projects, the contacts, all of it in the garbage can. Take whatever I could cash out and start over anonymously or just drift from one place to another. People have traveled exponentially farther on extremely less that what I was planning. I could get a one way ticket to somewhere, pay for a year's rent upfront and just rebuild from scratch.....

Um. Asshole. Rebuld what? If you're going to rebuild then why the hell are you going to stop building? What a load of pretentious bull SHIT. Wah wah wah I want to go where nobody knows my name. Well I think there's a bar named Jeers you can drown your loser sorrows in. It doesn't matter where you go, there you are.

Whatever load of crap you're pulling is like a Siamese version of that creepy little doll My buddy. "My buddy my buddy. Everywhere I go he follows me too. My buddy my buddy. My buddy and ME!!!" If you can't hack it in a place where you grew up, with all of the support systems and resources available to a native then you aren't going to hack it anywhere. Yes I am plagiarizing Sinatra. There's no way to run away from your problems, no way to hide from them. However there are very clear cut ways to solve them.

Identify. Analyze. Destroy.

What are some of the biggest motivating factors that make people think running away will solve their problems?

Boredom, yuppie poverty, loneliness. Hmm it looks like there's only one primary factor.

Boredom and loneliness are merely offshoots of a very serious malaise of the spirit that occurs in successful young urban professionals.

Yuppie poverty. It is a sickeningly whiny and shallow disease that is rapidly becoming an epidemic. Similar to how Alexander the Great went mad after conquering the known world except without all of the historical significance or Macedonian drama. It is most aptly described by the Chinese adage, "To be full without worrying about rice." That is not the recipe for a low-carb diet. It refers to people who have the necessities covered without realizing it.

I kicked myself in the mental nads for allowing such self-serving, ungrateful and entitled thoughts. Run away? From this? You must be stupid.

I am in one of the most vibrant and dynamic cities on the face of this planet.

I have opportunities and challenges that men twice my age have never even come close to.

I have the ability to shape my future and the future of those that I care about using little more than ingenuity and determination.

I have nobody to blame but myself.

I have no intention of losing.

I have the power to say YES I will and NO I will not. Not under any circumstances!

So as this motivational inner monologue began raging my phone rang.

I picked up and walked into the sunset onto my next meeting.