Five Lessons I Learned Living In NYC For One Month
Back in the middle of September 2021 I spontaneously set a new goal for myself: move to New York City. As soon as possible. While this may have been the result of going absolutely stir wild with everything stuck at a halt for almost two years, I was about to hit my birthday at the beginning of October and figured it was a good time to finally put myself out there in the world post graduation. Now, you’ve probably already realized that I wasn’t giving myself much time to up and move across the country considering I was living in Colorado beforehand. But with less than two weeks and a LOT of determination, I made it work. I feel like I have been living the dream or like I hopped onto the movie screen ever since.
New York City is seeing a huge shift in population towards young people as a lot of locals are moving elsewhere in the country. I find it kind of ironic considering in the 1920’s the exact same thing happened. They moved for work and new opportunities since NYC was the epicenter of change and embracing new ideals at the time. Sound familiar? Call that history repeating itself I suppose, especially considering it was post-pandemic back then too. Full circle! So if you are one of those young hooligans like me who is considering moving here, I am here to give you the five lessons I’ve learned after living in New York City for one month. I continue to learn more and more now everyday, but definitely had to osmosis the most in the first jump out here. Let’s get right into it!
Play At the Top of Your Intelligence (and research in order to do so!)
This is basically a life lesson by itself, but it really applied to moving to New York for me. One of my favorite professors I had in college always said to put as much research as you possibly can into what you are doing, especially whatever you are scared of or dreading. It’s a very poetic way of saying: Google things when you don’t know the answer, but I did a LOT of this in order to up and move to New York in under two weeks. The more you know about something, the easier it is to understand.
So when planning my move— I read articles and watched YouTube videos from various people who had lived in NYC; locals, newbies, influencers, friends/family, everybody I could think of. I did so just give me more perspective into understanding if this was a place for me and how exactly I should go about what I’m doing.
I joined a plethora of groups across social media for housing and even just to make friends in the city! Through these groups I was able to find my roommates, join a book club, find a place to live, and find some furniture put in my apartment too! The Internet is very daunting to use as a resource for these kinds of things considering the open anonymity to it, but I found that if you just use your best judgment and read all of the fine details that it can be of great value. It especially comes in handy when you do research on finding bots on each sight you are using. I personally used StreetEasy for my apartment hunting, Facebook groups to find roommates (and to join a book club in the city), Google Maps to understand neighborhoods and the subway, and TikTok/Instagram to see how people like me were saving money white living in the city and cool places/events to check out once I got there.
More recently, I’ve been using the same strategy for opportunities within the entertainment industry. I do as much research on different job hunting websites and entertainment websites to see what productions are happening, how much they’ll pay, if it’s a good work environment, etc. This has allowed me to refine my search to be in areas that I would like to further pursue my career in.
One more tool I’ve practically lived off of throughout this process was the book Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps by Kelly Williams Brown. This book practically takes you front to back through the process of taking care of your life and the many ‘adult’ things you may not have a grasp on yet. I swear that Brown has a tip for almost any road bump you might run into so it was nice to not only read it front to back, but keep on hand in case I have any problems pop up that I’m not sure how to fix. It’s basically been a bible for me this past month. Because of all the research I have done, I have gained a LOT of confidence and a better sense of belonging here, faster, while being in the city. I’ve also been able to help others around with this information too! It’s a win win for everyone!
2. Become an Aggressive Extrovert
I am an extrovert who thought they were an introvert their whole life purely due to living in introvert-like conditions. So basically, now I’m just a really bad extrovert. After the past few years, I’ve found myself struggling with basic social interactions again and I know I’m not alone in this. After self-isolation during the pandemic, I don’t even know how I functioned so well in conversation prior to March 2020! With moving to New York City, I understood that I would have to put myself out there and while it feels vulnerable—everyone else is scared in the exact same way.
Fun fact: you probably know a lot more people in the city than you think. Originally. I could name maybe five people I knew off the top of my head in New York City. However, as I started telling people I was moving here and checking out people’s social media pages again, I realized that my network was WAY bigger than I thought. Co-workers live here, previous college peers and professors, and even my friends live here. I had no idea! Especially with the pandemic, keeping up with where everyone is in the world now is WILD but it still gave me quite a shock when I realized this.
So after recognizing this, I took some self initiative and started DM’ing these people to see if they wanted to hang out or if they had any tips for me! This was such a solid jumping off point for me and set me on a path of meeting a lot of people here. I also used those Facebook groups again for this very thing. If you are a part of any specific communities, this is a great place to find like people. I joined a few queer groups which helped me feel a lot more welcome here.
Warning: research is about to come into play again. From here, I highly recommend keeping an eye out for community events to go to (that are being safely held COVID-19 wise, of course). Are you a party animal? Keep an eye out on clubs holding holiday/fundraising opportunities. People are READY to meet new people. If that’s not quite your scene, you can always volunteer for causes you are passionate about helping around here! NYC Cares is a great place to start for that. If you’re a thrifter, flea markets are a perfect way to meet your people!
You just have to be willing to open yourself up to talking to a stranger. Hard, I know, but you’ve definitely done so before. And if you don’t know which one of these scenes is right for you, you can always go to some of your local coffee shops and check if they have community boards. This is where an array of various events will be posted and you can check out what’s happening in your neighborhood. Plus, with the people you do know in the city, make sure you advocate for yourself and tell them that you’d love to go do things with them as well. That open communication line is going to allow for more opportunities to open for you to meet more people.
3. Ask For Help
This is a hard one in my opinion. I’m really bad about this, I’ve always have been. I feel like I have to do everything by myself as a very independent person. However, there are people there to help you with these kinds of things. If you are moving, you can always ask some friends to help you out and offer to buy them pizzas and beers (or root beer if you are underage)! If it’s even something as small as not being able to reach the top shelf in your kitchen cupboards, just ask your roommates to give you a helping hand. I know it can feel like a burden and like a lot to advocate for yourself, but advocacy is what’s going to help you through living in a big city like this.
A lot of times people here are more than happy to help you out, even if it doesn’t feel like it. For example, I was trying to catch a train from Manhattan back to Brooklyn carrying some clothes in a paper bag. However, the bottom of the bag got wet so as I was about to head down the stairs into the subway, the bag broke and exploded all my things across the sidewalk. I started to severely panic as I was on Sixth Avenue of all places, so it was quite busy and all my things were sprawled out in everyone’s way. Within a minute of this happening, the restaurant owner that this happened in front of ran out and gave me a new bag to put my things in. I was honestly ready to cry. I had no idea that I could ask them for such a thing, let alone that they saw what happened and helped me out of nowhere.
After that happened, I started to notice the large amount of common courtesy here that goes unrecognized. People holding doors open, helping with directions, lending a hand to lift heavy items, the list goes on. It’s little things like that. I’m sure when you first move here it can feel like people are rude, don’t want to have anything to do with you, etc. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes people are just busy and things move really fast here. It’s not that they’re unwilling to help, sometimes they just need to catch the train! There’s a lot of good people in the city and it’s not only worthwhile to get to meet some of them, but to just let them help you. The same thing goes vice versa— if you see people struggling or having a hard time, offer a helping hand! Not even just for karma’s sake, it’s just nice to give someone your time and let them feel seen.
4. Hop Into the Industry At Your Own Pace!
Immediately when I moved here, I fell into my typical mindset of “Put yourself out there as much as possible ASAP!” I think I do this whenever I move to a new place because of my excitement to be there, meet new people, and do new things. At the same time, I haven’t had to really make a schedule of any kind since March 2020, so the idea of time management as a whole has definitely gotten away from me. Scheduling time out of my day to do specific things and be at specific events feels weird now and I found myself overwhelmed by it almost instantly. Yes, there’s so much to do here— but make sure you schedule in some you time, too!
In the entertainment industry specifically, I always feel like I have to take every opportunity that comes near me. This is, obviously, the mindset of someone who hasn’t lived in places with a lot of entertainment opportunities. But in a city filled with them, I’m beginning to realize that if I were to take every single one and apply to every single kind of position in this industry here that I will have no time to do anything else at all. I’ve had to listen to myself and identify what I want to do with my time before I take auditions and send in applications. I’ve never felt that before! In smaller cities that feels like such a silly thing to have to navigate. But you have to budget your time wisely and apply to things you genuinely want to do in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle here. It’s not all about the work here, it’s only part of it. It’s all about living in the moment and experiencing the city. That’s the number one priority.
5. Romanticize…Seriously!
I’m sure I just got an eye roll out of you, dear reader. But listen up! I was like you once, thinking that romanticizing locations and certain aspects of life is a harmful and hazardous thing. But sometimes we need to understand if there is a difference between getting excited and basking in the beauty of your lifestyle and idealizing it. I’ve had so many experiences while living in New York City that felt truly magical and right out of the movies. I mean, my plane landed on the runway at LaGuardia right as the chorus hit to Empire State of Mind and I had a perfect view of all of Manhattan. You’re gonna look at me and tell me I can’t gush over the fact I experienced that?!
But that’s not idealizing. I think idealizing can sometimes build false expectations and leave you feel disappointed when things don’t go exactly as you imagined it. With romanticizing, I see it as truly living in the moment and letting yourself bask in the beauty of what’s in front of you.
It’s really important to recognize the pros and cons to everything around you, including where you live and your day-to-day life. You really do have to experience the highest highs and lowest lows truthfully. However, with city living specifically there’s this mentality constantly pushed on us to only see the lowest lows. There’s a lot of beauty to cities, one in particular being: here I can see what people are truly capable of. When you give ourselves opportunities and we give ourselves a chance to make things and build a community, we REALLY do it and it’s beautiful!
I also view cities as a place to learn a lot about myself through learning about others and their experiences. I feel like I always become a way better person than I was before whenever I live in one. Opening yourself to other’s perspectives really pushes yourself to grow, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what else I can learn living here!
