Is Anyone Happy And If So Please Raise Your Hand: A New Yorker Contends With Too Many Options

It's 6:30 am. Coffee and the paper. My mind is whirling already. Yes, exercise class at 9. No, got to write, will exercise later. Wait, going to a party tonight and hair needs blowing out. No luncheon today maybe that's when I should exercise. Need to deal with boring insurance policy. Is this my life and don't forget to re-order the cat's heart pills.

I hear about life in places where they have grass for lawns, tennis and book club and meetings of the Weeders and Seeders. Sounds good but could I do it and not go nuts? So, how are your seedlings and how's your bush? From there it's one stop to Bloody Marys at noon and fooling around with the tennis pro.

New Yorkers are unfortunately driven folk - the competition even in downtimes is fierce and with me, it's a matter of constantly reinventing my life all in the name of happiness, finding it and not missing something. But does it really exist or is it just a question of spoonfuls at a time because, that's what I think. Come on be honest and tell me how happy you are? Did filling your days with Prada and Miu Miu release happy hormones that lasted for more than an hour? Did your child's acceptance at Pre-K buy more than a few days before you started worrying about getting him into Buckley or Trinity?

In many communities the choices don't exist but in New York it's a question of option 1 and what's behind the next door -- I want to do good works but I want to have a good job and I want to have a personal life and I want and I want and I want....when is it enough and what is it we're trying to achieve.

I went to watch my friend Barbie Barna, a casting director, teach a class on how you choose actors for commercials or sitcoms or reality shows. She made the students — aspiring anchors deep down in their hearts — pretend to pitch a product and filmed them (Barbie's record includes "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," "What Not to Wear" and my fave - "Underdog to Wonderdog"). The students were a wreck with papers twitching and so much hyperventilating paper bags were needed. Barbie's assessment was reassuring but tough and truthfully not one student could pass the Barbie test. Over martinis at the Mandarin she and I reviewed projects we have tried to launch — a Cosmopolitan Magazine dating show which was ahead of its time — and ones we might attack in the future — not telling — but there was clearly a restlessness we shared. It's the New York "what's next?" factor. Nothing is ever enough in this city because the options — even in downtimes — are a matter of reinventing yourself one more time and the one who's best wins...for a bit.

We are a competitive bunch and envy runs amok for fear we're missing something. Oprah's big into giving back and filling yourself up spiritually — yes it does work but sometimes a Xanax is better when the gremlins take over your mind and start whispering "you're missing something, someone's life is more interesting, get out there." You have only to see how women treat each other in New York to understand — there is no sisterhood and you can take that to your Chase Manhattan and deposit it.

New Yorkers are the masters of reinvention and revisionist history and only here can you fail miserably one day and then, like Eliot Spitzer, kick aside the ashes of shame and flap your way back to stardom. Wonder if he's happy now?

In a life long lived and hopefully living longer, I am anxious for contentment and tablespoons of happiness. Beyond that, I'd need my brain Botoxed.

Comments

[aivilo]

Very good!

[Eek909]

I'm from Iowa. I read the paper and drink coffee, and go to exercise class at 9, and have luncheons and parties at night. I get my hair done, and freak out about where to send my kids for preschool. Why do you think that's only New Yorkers? We have options in flyover states. You have some view of the rest of the country that we're all living in Mayberry, sitting around on front porches and whittling wood. Happiness is not about what state you live in...it's all about state of mind.

Anxious people are anxious people, wherever they happen to live. Happy people are happy people, wherever they happen to live. If you're competitive and envious, you need to work on that, not just blame it on your city. If you moved to Iowa, I have a feeling you'd still be a nervous wreck.

[Arithrianos]

Why are we "happy" when we get what we want? It is not because of possessions, it it because we have temporarily stoped wanting, and when you stop wanting, then what is left is experienced as happiness. The problem is the Ego has endless wants, so a new one grabs us pretty quickly. If you desire true lasting happiness, the only way is abandoning conflicted desires.