I was a bit shocked to hear during an interview that, when asked about his feelings on New York City, best-selling author Ryan Holiday had this to say about New York (around 1:32:00):
“I did spend some time in New York. I went there after my first book sold. I thought that ‘Oh, this is where writers should go, or whatever.’ And I was struck by, one, how incredibly unhappy everyone was, and how incredibly, like, small their lives were. This is someone who is a top person at this outlet or that outlet and they have a two-bedroom apartment, they have two kids, they spend tens of thousands of dollars a year to send them to this private school, and it just feels like they’re grinding out a miserable existence. And I just felt like I didn’t want that at all, and I didn’t think that it led to particularly good creative work, and so, yeah, my wife and I moved to Texas…I know for a fact that the farm that I live on cost no more than the one-bedroom that I was renting in Manhattan.”
It got me thinking about my clients, my own life in New York, and whether I found what he said to be true. Do I find people that unhappy here? Not really. I would think that, on a percentage basis, the same amount of people who are unhappy in the city would be unhappy in the suburbs. People are happy, and unhappy, everywhere. Maybe it’s not New York. Maybe it’s Twitter! Maybe it’s Facebook! Maybe it’s
Is it the small apartment, or big house? Is it the subway or the SUV? Is it private school, or suburban public school? Is it backyards, or parks?
Anything can make you happy or unhappy. You can keep up with the Joneses, or fail to do it, in Manhattan as easily as anywhere else. I’ve said many times, people come to New York City and are often up to something big. They didn’t come here to “grind out a miserable existence!” They came here to achieve their wildest dreams!
My role, and my team’s, is to help people find a home that supports their dreams. No settling required.