By Ife J. Ibitayo
I just returned from a trip to New York City—the home of Miles Morales, the Cookie Monster, and some other, less important people. New York is a complicated city. I’d listen to the siren song of an undiscovered musician as I descended into a subway station. Then I’d choke on the rancid stench of piss as I ascended out of it. Someone once said that those who visit New York will either see “all that glimmers or all its garbage,” and I definitely experienced both ends of the bargain.
But I was most bewildered by the people. New Yorkers are a race in and of themselves. They are brash, confident, hip, and strange. From the men sporting sunglasses on the already cloudy days or the women wearing spaghetti straps and minis in the middle of the rain, I knew I stuck out with my millennial skinny jeans and pullover sweater.
Am I Hustling Enough?
I quickly learned that to be in New York is to be in a hurry. New Yorkers will push past you, scream at you, and literally climb over you to get to their destination on time. Some have defined the New York Second—the time between a light turning green and the taxi behind you honking—as “the shortest time in the multiverse.” And I became well acquainted with this phenomenon as blaring horns harassed me as I lay awake in my hotel room.
But my lying awake didn’t start here in New York. Ever since this year began, my schedule has taken a dramatic turn. Social outings, hangouts, and Sabbaths all took a backseat to studying, working, and hustling. Some of it seemed necessary at the time. A perfect storm of schoolwork and life circumstances coincided to squeeze the space out of my schedule. But it was only revealing a much deeper issue lurking in my heart.
I remember one late Thursday afternoon when I foolishly scrolled through my email right before taking a much-needed nap. When I discovered yet another rejected application, I lay restlessly in my bed for a few minutes before having to get back up. I didn’t want to return to the grind; I needed to. Because in the absence of external validation to confirm the value of my hard work, I needed the hard work itself to substitute in. I needed the bleary-eyed late nights and the bone-weary exhaustion and the harried, frenetic pace of my every day to distract my worried heart.
Am I Enough?
Too stressed out to sleep and too distracted to work, I went outside for a walk. On that strangely wet and cloudy Los Angeles day, I wondered to myself: Why am I doing all this? Do I hustle because I fear falling behind? Or do I fear not measuring up? Am I enough? And fighting my way through the crowded streets of New York City a few months later, these questions resurfaced all over again.
Conclusion
But there was one beautiful respite that redeemed my Big Apple breakdown. Standing on the top floor of a skyscraper, staring out on the harbor, I enjoyed a rare moment of stillness. A ferry carved a lazy arc through the water as the sun just began to peak out of the clouds. As its warm glow dispelled the gloom from that afternoon’s heavy rain, I knew in my heart that I’m not built to be a New Yorker.
I cannot hustle my way to happiness. I have to religiously carve out time for God, friends, and for myself. And even if the building I’m constructing grows at a slower pace than others’ high-rises, at least I’ll be laying down a sturdy foundation that just might survive the ups and downs—the earthquakes—I know I’ll experience out here in Los Angeles.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”
(Matthew 7:24-25)