New York City: Dreamers & the Joy in the Doing
“It’s a city full of people trying to make it by any means. The hope that’s placed in the idea of One Day. But…it’s not in making it that we find the joy. The joy is in the doing of the thing.”
Dreams are as part of the air as oxygen in New York.
Musicians perform on cardboard stages in subways, collecting quarters in the hopes that, one day, the rumble of the trains becomes that of a crowd.
Poets read from their weathered journals at empty open mic nights in hopes that, one day, they become somebody asked to sign their own pages.
An immigrant father sells, from his food truck, the dishes of his homeland made from his mother’s hands in hopes that, one day, he can pass to his children, a restaurant bigger than one that’s on wheels.
It’s a city full of people trying to make it by any means. The hope that’s placed in the idea of One Day.
But as anyone who’s ever ‘made it’ anywhere will tell you, it’s not in making it that we find the joy.
The joy is in the doing of the thing.
When you find something that lights you up, it’s not the notion of success that keeps it going. It’s knowing you wouldn’t be the person that you are, without this thing that you love.
This is the stuff I live for when travelling. When you witness what makes a stranger’s eyes sparkle-the thing that they’d do even if it led them to nowhere.
Because does everything really have to lead to somewhere?
You can walk through these streets feeling like the biggest loser, like your day was a failure, like you have little to offer.
But the city’s momentum keeps you in motion. It helps you back up when you’re a heap on the floor. And you go again. And you try again.
Because a tomorrow in New York is the offer of something new, something different, something sometimes better.
The thing about this city is it mothers you with tough love. It doesn’t coddle you or let you feel sorry for yourself for too long.
Its magic lies as much in its challenges as its opportunities.
And maybe that’s why it makes dreams come true.
The way it coaxes you to keep crafting a life of your choosing, whilst shaking you awake to the life that you’re living.
It reminds you that there’s no age limit on grabbing hold of your dreams.
You just have to find the joy in the doing of the thing.
And have faith that, like this city, tomorrow is the offer of something new, something different and something sometimes even better.
